Still She Haunts Me by Katie Roiphe

Author:Katie Roiphe
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780440333852
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2002-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

Dodgson rushed out to get the latest issue of Cornhill Magazine so that he could read the new installment of The Small House at Allington. He was embarrassed by how eager he was to obtain it. But each section tantalized and pulled him further in, though nothing ever happened. Lily Dale continued to remain irrationally faithful to Crosbie, who had betrayed her, broken off their engagement, and run off with a lady of higher rank; and she continued to refuse handsome Johnny Eames, whom she was in fact quite attached to.

The story was one long reflection on perversity stretching out over months, each installment like another pearl on the string. Would she change her mind? Why wouldn’t she change her mind? Dodgson found it strange that he was so caught up in this story that was not a story. This exercise in frustration, like a child practicing scales. The atmosphere of the novel was like a swamp, the air thick and warm, with pockets of flies; that same lack of motion, of vista; the feeling more of getting stuck than of reading.

So why did he open the magazine with such anticipation? Lily Dale was pushing ahead with a love that no one could understand, that led like a dead-end road to the barren seaside, a few brushes of grass in the dunes—in other words, to no city where anyone else lived—she could not live an ordinary life, could not build a house, in that love.

And then of course, no one in Trollope seemed to possess the purity of mind and heart one associated with the heroes and heroines of great literature. Even the ideal suitor Johnny Eames, dangled in front of the reader as the man Lily was supposed to marry, the good-hearted loyal John, had involved himself with another woman in his rooming house. The innocent were not innocent. The good were weak. Everyone in Trollope had complicated pasts and layers of attachment and peculiarities of affection. His characters refused the work of a novel: making themselves happy. That was the secret of Trollope, so unlike Austen, Thackeray, Dickens, or any other writer Dodgson had thus far encountered. Why this dark view of human character should be so soothing, he had no idea. But somehow Small House burst through him and gave him peace.

The story was so long and tedious that it held up a mirror to its devoted readers: why did they want Lily Dale to get married to Johnny Eames so desperately? Was it possible that she was better off alone? Were there complexities of feeling that could not be contained by the usual vows? The book forced the assumptions of the Mrs. Liddells of the world to crack open and reveal themselves for what they were: the easy, shallow, unthinking embrace of holy matrimony.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.