Multiple Reading Personalities

Kafka’s Letter to his father was his only creative work in at the end of 1919/ early 1920; and while it is not absolutely a piece of fiction, it does certainly have some fictional traits, the most egregious being that the ostensible addressee of the letter (you’d never guess that would be Kafka’s father, would you?) was certainly not its intended readership. Kafka made sure his mother and his sister Ottla read the letter, but his father never saw it. Fictional however does not necessarily mean that he meant for the letter to ever be published: the letter was not part of the documents he entrusted to Max Brod (the story goes that Kafka asked his friend to destroy most of his papers after his death, and that Brod went against his instructions; it’s dubious whether Kafka really intended to have his manuscripts obliterated, and the fact that he bothered to keep some papers — such as this letter — in more private storage would confirm that. Never to be deterred, the good Max found the letter and included it in his biographical notes on Kafka). I do wonder what else in this letter is thought out to produce a certain effect on the reader, rather than to entirely reflect the mind of the writer. Take for instance this sentence: “Mother unconsciously played the part of a beater during a hunt“. If “Mother” was the intended reader, there’s a casual cruelty there that’s worth noting, and it’s all the more interesting for being indirect and hardly answerable. Franz might be playing a different manipulation game than his father, but he’s not exactly being straightforward himself.

The whole letter, in fact, contains plenty of evocations of the perverse power plays that Kafka wrote compulsively about. The father is a figure of distant, invasive, incomprehensible power. He is explicitly politic (“On your side there was the tyranny of your own nature“, “it is not to plot something against you“, “I might go on to describe further orbits of your influence and of struggle against it“), but to be fair the writer himself does not appear to be much less manipulative. Kafka does indeed close any possibility of an answer, not only by not sending his letter, but also by imagining his father demonstrating that his son has placed him in an indefensible position… And answering that objection by nothing less than annihilation (“To this I answer that first of all this whole rejoinder (…) does not originate in you but, in fact, in me“), followed by a “clause of evasion” applicable to anything he has written before (“Naturally things cannot in reality fit together in the way the evidence does in my letter“). This brings us back to the child Franz, who was so afraid of his father that he for a while took to only talking to him through the mediation of his mother; the adult Kafka doesn’t seem to have changed his strategy much despite its limited success at allowing him to gain his independence. This in turns recalls the pretext for the letter in the first place: Kafka’s “inability to marry” (the letter was written after he had broken marriage plans for the third time in his life… Fatherly disapproval seems to be the reason at first, but later Kafka confesses that he feels unable to marry, as it is the realm of his parents and would be a way to escape his father’s influence — and is therefore impossible).

All in all the letter is a fascinating peek into Kafka’s mental word, and reading it I felt that everything, everything I ever read from him was about his father and their relationship. Oh, that’s the Trial! Here’s the allegory of Justice! Here’s the Penal Colony! However there’s also much less of Kafka’s ‘signature’ coldness. I must confess that I don’t enjoy reading his fiction at all: it leaves me feeling cold, guilty and dirty. Judging by this letter, this is how Kafka himself was made to feel in the presence of his father. It’s not however what I experienced reading this letter. Heartbreak, certainly, every time he evoked the child he was, faced with the brute of a father he had to contend with; interest, hope, doubts, indignation… And much more. A less specific experience, but one that was easier to relate to.

Une si longue lettre, un si court roman, et pourtant si longtemps pour en noter quelques idées… Lu au coeur de la tourmente de la préparation des examens, pour faire une petite pause plaisir, que me reste-t-il en mémoire avant que de rouvrir le livre pour y vérifier mes souvenirs ? J’ai oublié les noms, l’écriture, mais ni les personnages ni leur histoire. En fait, le récit vit plus dans ma mémoire sur le plan de l’histoire personnelle que sur celui de la littérature, c’est-à-dire qu’il a pris place sur l’étagère mémorielle “biographies des amis et de la famille”, une petite place a-spectaculaire, difficilement analysable ou critiquable, car relevant de l’expérience personnelle et non d’une construction intellectuelle. C’est faux: Une si longue lettre est un roman, non un mémoire. Il a parfois été qualifié de semi-autobiographique (c’est un premier roman, après tout), mais “semi” est un terrain sur lequel mieux vaut ne pas trop se précipiter.

“Hier, tu as divorcé. Aujourd’hui, je suis veuve.”

Ces mots sont parmi les premiers de la lettre que Ramatoulaye (je viens de vérifier le nom) écrit à son amie  de toujours, Aïssatou, pendant les quarante jours de réclusion que lui impose son veuvage. Ces mots disent tout le livre. Les coeurs brisés, mais aussi l’opposition qui apparaît immédiatement entre les deux amies, entre celle qui a choisi son destin même dans l’échec et celle qui l’a accepté. Nous apprendrons en effet assez vite que les époux des deux femmes les ont soumises à la même épreuve, celle de devoir accepter une seconde épouse, et que les amies ont pris des décisions opposées. Mariama Bâ, qui avait pour sa part divorcé, fait donc un choix éclairant de point de vue en choisissant de donner la parole à la femme qui est restée. Le propos n’est pas de prendre parti, mais de comprendre.

Cette volonté d’empathie va d’ailleurs plus loin — les jeunes filles qui sont entrées, par une violence plus ou moins pernicieuse, dans la vie des maris, sont en grande partie justifiées, comprises, “contextualisées”  (Binetou, la seconde épouse du mari de Ramatoulaye, pourrait faire figure de chasseuse d’or tout à fait détestable si sa cruauté n’était expliquée : “victime, elle se voulait oppresseur”…). Il y a certes des figures féminines rien moins que positives (la mère de Binetou, la “belle-tante” haineuse d’Aïssatou) ; ce  sont systématiquement des femmes plus âgées, présentées comme des instruments de la société traditionnelle.

Les hommes en revanche manquent terriblement de profondeur dans ce livre, pas tant je pense par échec de l’écriture que comme représentation d’une incommunication réelle. Lâches et fuyants, ils sont surtout totalement incompréhensibles. Pourquoi deviennent-ils l’obstacle principal à la société plus moderne et plus bienveillante à laquelle ils aspiraient pourtant, jeunes hommes ? Pour une femme docile, jolie, et ne ressemblant plus en rien à ce qu’ils adoraient à vingt ans ? Il y a là un mystère irréductible, car Bâ n’évoque pas de simples beaux-parleurs, mais bien des hommes qui ont sérieusement consacré des années de leur vie à un rêve qu’ils “cassent” ensuite pour une manifeste chimère qui ne leur apporte évidemment pas le bonheur.

Le livre a été dédié par Mariama Bâ “à toutes les femmes et aux hommes de bonne volonté“. Cela reflète parfaitement l’aspiration désabusée, le désir de croire encore en l’homme (sans majuscule),  mais aussi la méfiance qui s’est installée, le besoin de qualifier : de quels hommes parlons-nous ? La tristesse, la déception dominent ; l’espoir a reflué de la vie de Ramatoulaye, même si elle veut encore se convaincre qu’il subsiste pour ses enfants, pour les générations à venir. Ses fils et ses filles semblent mieux armés, plus forts qu’elle ne l’était; l’amitié ne l’a pas trahie. La fin du livre est même ostensiblement positive, une décision d’aller de l’avant, de vivre à nouveau… Pourtant ce que j’en retiens c’est d’abord un profond sentiment de tristesse, les ”lacérations dans l’individu” évoquées, et une image (étrangère au livre) qui m’a accompagnée dans sa lecture, celle d’une Pénélope “inversée”, qui tenterait de tisser un ouvrage qui se déferrait sans fin. Bien sûr, la lettre écrite dans une période de deuil en a forcément une amertume circonstancielle que je ne voudrais pas généraliser. En fait peut-être le souffle d’espoir est-il cyniquement justement dans ce deuil : le vieux monde meurt, la société paternaliste meurt avec ses pères, et le deuil est possible. Alléluia?

“I had feelings of affection, and they were requited by detestation and scorn. Man! You may hate, but beware!” (the monster)
“Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.“ (Frankenstein)

Illustration by Abigail Larson

I needed two quotes instead of one for what I liked in Frankenstein – its saving grace – was its duality. Is Victor Frankenstein a victim and his creation purely a “fiend” – or might Victor not be the real monster, and his creation the martyr?

Brought up in a loving Swiss family, Victor is an imaginative teen with a passionate intellect vulnerable to the wildest scientific theories. Despite his reclusive nature, Victor prepares to leave family to study at the university of Ingolstadt when he suffers his first misfortune: the death of his mother. Another shock waits for him in Germany, where he learns that the philosophers and naturalists he has been studying passionately (alchemists and mystics such as Paracelsus) are widely discredited. He decides to study physics and chemistry, quickly mastering these two disciplines.

In his studies, Victor stumbles upon “the secret of life” – and of course decides to test it. Assembling a semblance of a human being in his laboratory, he finally imparts it with life after months of grueling labor, only to feel a disgust of his creation so overwhelming he flees it in blind terror. When he finally returns to his laboratory, the creature is nowhere to be seen. Victor falls into a long delirious illness, nursed by his childhood friend Clerval.

From there, the tale descends into horror: Victor only finds his strength back to lose it again and again. He recovers from his illness to return home and find his youngest brother murdered and a family protégée falsely accused. Victor knows the real culprit is his monster, but cannot prove it. The creature seeks him out, eager to tell him the story from his point view, the rejection by all men including his creator, the accident that led to the murder of Victor’s brother, his solitude and his thirst for company. The monster offers a deal: if Victor creates him a companion, he will disappear forever. Victor accepts, and travels to England to seek out some scientists who can help him build his second creation (apparently, he forgot the trick). A fit of thinking however makes him realize that he’s putting the rest of humanity at risk by unleashing a second fiend upon it, and he destroys his labor. In revenge, the creature kills Clerval, and promises to destroy all that remains of Victor’s happiness on the night of his wedding.

Unable to imagine that this would be a threat against his fiancée, Victor decides to marry her as fast as possible, so he can once more confront – and maybe even this time fight – his monster. Alas! The fiend kills Elizabeth and Victor’s father, ravaged by grief, soon follows into the tomb. Creator and creature then start a chase that will lead them to the North Pole, where Victor dies without having been able to undo his deed. At his deathbed, the creature expresses his remorse, and departs to immolate himself in the wilderness, therefore erasing all his traces.

There are weaknesses aplenty in the book, and they are difficult to overlook: gaping plot holes, characters displaying limited mental abilities (despite his unparalleled brilliance, Victor rarely thinks ahead, and when he does his nerves betray him, or the book would end up much sooner), unrealistic exposition devices (someone writing in a letter: “you know that…” and then proceeding to explain in details what his correspondent knows) and an exaltation sometimes bordering on silliness… Yet this was the work of an author barely 18-year old! Her vivid imagination and enthusiasm are not the last of the charms of the book.

The main interest, however, is the mystery of the monster: are we to believe its account of itself, and feel the cruelty of its fate, or are we to embrace the point of view of the main narrator, Frankenstein, and feel his instinctive hatred for his creation? Perhaps from the weakness of the narration, I could not like Victor at all – found him to be a self-absorbed, timorous prick – and therefore had to side entirely with the monster. I had to share Mary Shelley’s reservations about human nature and its destructiveness, though I would not espouse her view of nature as the healer of it.

“Arm yourself, my dear child, for the worst; and resolve to lose your life sooner than your virtue.”

I am afraid Pamela will not be treated here with my customary enthusiasm… In short I found it a very silly book. I could have stretched my tolerance to accept its trying morals as being simply outdated, but the writing itself (long-winded, pretentious and frankly repetitive) did not help much. In the end I was pretty much reduced to use Pamela as a learning aid for such expressions as “sauce-box” (impertinent) or “rake” (libertine). It would be a lie to pretend that I did not take the party of the rakes against the sauce-box more than once.

Pamela is a fifteen year-old maid and protegee to Mrs B, an apparently excellent woman, who recommends her to the care of his son with her dying breath. Alas! The young Mr. B, though perfection itself in every other regard (by which apparently Richardson means fortune, birth and beauty) is not as serious as he should be. Pamela’s attractions decide him to have her; but the girl is virtuous, and will not succumb to seduction. As it is quite unimaginable to court a servant, and even more that he should renounce his pleasures, he then decides to rape her. Alas again, he does not manage it: Pamela keeps fainting with fear, and apparently his delicacy will not accept an unconscious unwilling partner. Over the course of many, many letters written by Pamela, we learn of all Mr. B’s tricks and of her imprisonment in not one, but two of his houses. Friends betray her, bad advice is given, fear and promises are alternatively pressed on her, but Pamela never falters in her resolution to be dead rather than lost. This admirable behavior, coupled from everything he learned from reading her letters, finally overcomes the last of Mr. B’s reticence, and he marries her in an effusion of feelings.

Beyond the stilted writing of a beginning author and the outdated morality of the book, I took issue mainly with the protagonists. Mr. B I think I need not dwell on. As for Pamela, her virtue is unassailable, and she is presented as a paragon of all that is good in a woman: yet she appears coquettish (always very aware of her clothes and beauty, though to protest to the contrary at all times), judgmental (“Sir Simon, it seems“, says she, ” who has been a sad rake in his younger days” before treating him as one) and quite a gossip. She also lacks sadly in intelligence, if not in invention: she can envision nothing more beautiful than a future spent toiling by her poor parents’ side, never thinking of any other plan than to join them, and resisting Mr. B rather in all the right ways to excite his ardors. There’s not one original thought in her: presumably I should blame it on the author rather than on her (I guess he thought it the height of art to inform us that she was very good looking by having her protest at lengths others’ reports of it), but the result is the same annoyance.

Part of the problem springs from the work being a morality piece for a public expected to be unsubtle (young women); a contributing factor is that Richardson was so intent on creating a young and modest Pamela that he did not realize her naivete made for a very dull narrator. I love epistolary novels, but they’re easier to read when their voices are those of brilliant cynics like Choderlos de Laclos’s characters than when they are insubstantial little prudes such as Pamela.