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Book Review: Mrs. Farrell
Oct. 22nd, 2021 08:45 pmYou guys, you guys, I've finished William Dean Howells' Mrs. Farrell (originally published in serial version under the title Private Theatricals) and it is TWICE as gay as John W. Crowley's The Mask of Fiction led me to believe, because there is not only a shippable m/m couple but ALSO an f/f possibility!
The potential f/f definitely gets less development over the course of the book, but it starts off with a bang, as the widowed Mrs. Farrell flirts incessantly with her Rachel Woodward, a New England girl with a talent for drawing whom she means to make her protegee. Mrs. Farrell lolls against a boulder, causing Rachel to glance "with a slight anxiety at the freedom of Mrs. Farrell’s self-disposition, whose signal grace might well have justified its own daring.
'Rachel,' said Mrs. Farrell, subtly interpreting her expression, 'you’re almost as modest as a man; I’m always putting you to the blush. There, will that do any better?' she asked, modifying her posture. She gazed into the young girl’s face with a caricatured prudery, and Rachel colored faintly and smiled."
Soon, however, two young men interrupt this idyll. They are Easton and Gilbert, who fought together in the Civil War and have retained ever since a tender attachment to each other. Easton, Gilbert tells his sister-in-law, “is a man’s man, you’re right; he’s shyer of your admirable sex than any country boy; it’s no use to tell him you’re not so dangerous as you look.”
Howells repeatedly compares Easton and Gilbert's friendship to a love affair. Literally: when Easton tells Mrs. Farrell the circumstances of their meeting in the army, she replies, "it’s quite like a love-affair.” There's also a scene where Gilbert drops by Easton's room after Easton has gone to bed, and Howells notes that "the bright moon would have made [the room] uncomfortable for any but a lover." Gilbert, notably, appears perfectly comfortable.
(He does, however, leave the room at the end of the scene: they're clearly not sharing the bed. Howells also singles out the moment when "Gilbert came and laid his arm across his shoulder—the nearest that an American can come to embracing his friend," as a somewhat unusual display of physical affection. Lovers they may be, but "lovers" in the Victorian "I would kiss your footprints but scarcely dare to touch your hand" sense, clearly.)
And then you've got this exchange between Mrs. Farrell and Gilbert, which I think I've got to quote in full, because there's SO much going on here.
But this attached friendship is not to last: Easton and Gilbert both fall for Mrs. Farrell's lustrous beauty and wanton habit of draping herself over rocks. Or rather, Easton falls in love with her. Gilbert, despite scoffing that Mrs. Farrell's "flirtatiousness is vast enough for the whole world," falls against his better judgment into a lust for her so passionate and unreasoned that he attempts to woo Mrs. Farrell away from Easton while Easton is too ill to rise from his sickbed. GILBERT. DUDE.
(Mrs. Farrell, no angel, but a better man than Gilbert, ultimately begs Gilbert's sister-in-law to use her influence to make him leave before any more mischief can be wrought. Exeunt Gilbert, much wroth.)
"At the best," Howells muses, "love is fatal to friendship; the most that friendship can do is to listen to love’s talk of itself and be the confident of its rapturous joys, its transports of despair. The lover fancies himself all the fonder of his friend because of his passion for his mistress, but in reality he has no longer any need of the old comrade..." And so forth. Passionate male friendships were seen as a specific life-stage thing: they're sweet for young men in their teens and twenties, but they're meant to be set aside when as young men grow up and get married.
( Spoilers for the ending )
The potential f/f definitely gets less development over the course of the book, but it starts off with a bang, as the widowed Mrs. Farrell flirts incessantly with her Rachel Woodward, a New England girl with a talent for drawing whom she means to make her protegee. Mrs. Farrell lolls against a boulder, causing Rachel to glance "with a slight anxiety at the freedom of Mrs. Farrell’s self-disposition, whose signal grace might well have justified its own daring.
'Rachel,' said Mrs. Farrell, subtly interpreting her expression, 'you’re almost as modest as a man; I’m always putting you to the blush. There, will that do any better?' she asked, modifying her posture. She gazed into the young girl’s face with a caricatured prudery, and Rachel colored faintly and smiled."
Soon, however, two young men interrupt this idyll. They are Easton and Gilbert, who fought together in the Civil War and have retained ever since a tender attachment to each other. Easton, Gilbert tells his sister-in-law, “is a man’s man, you’re right; he’s shyer of your admirable sex than any country boy; it’s no use to tell him you’re not so dangerous as you look.”
Howells repeatedly compares Easton and Gilbert's friendship to a love affair. Literally: when Easton tells Mrs. Farrell the circumstances of their meeting in the army, she replies, "it’s quite like a love-affair.” There's also a scene where Gilbert drops by Easton's room after Easton has gone to bed, and Howells notes that "the bright moon would have made [the room] uncomfortable for any but a lover." Gilbert, notably, appears perfectly comfortable.
(He does, however, leave the room at the end of the scene: they're clearly not sharing the bed. Howells also singles out the moment when "Gilbert came and laid his arm across his shoulder—the nearest that an American can come to embracing his friend," as a somewhat unusual display of physical affection. Lovers they may be, but "lovers" in the Victorian "I would kiss your footprints but scarcely dare to touch your hand" sense, clearly.)
And then you've got this exchange between Mrs. Farrell and Gilbert, which I think I've got to quote in full, because there's SO much going on here.
“How very droll!” said Mrs. Farrell. Then she said, looking at him through her eyelashes, “It’s quite touching to see such attached friends.”
Gilbert stirred uneasily on his block, and answered, “It’s a great honor to form part of a spectacle affecting to you, Mrs. Farrell—if you mean Easton and me.”
“Yes, I do. Don’t scoff at my weak impressibility. You must see that it’s a thing calculated to rouse a woman’s curiosity. You seem so very different!”
“Men and women are very different, in some respects,” calmly responded Gilbert, “but there have been quite strong attachments between them.”
“True,” rejoined Mrs. Farrell with burlesque thoughtfulness. “But in this case they’re both men.”
“Nothing escapes you, Mrs. Farrell,” said Gilbert, bowing his head.
“You praise me more than I deserve. I didn’t take all your meaning. One of you is so mightily, so heroically manly, that the other necessarily womanizes in comparison. Isn’t that it? But which is which?”
“Modesty forbids me to claim either transcendent distinction.”
But this attached friendship is not to last: Easton and Gilbert both fall for Mrs. Farrell's lustrous beauty and wanton habit of draping herself over rocks. Or rather, Easton falls in love with her. Gilbert, despite scoffing that Mrs. Farrell's "flirtatiousness is vast enough for the whole world," falls against his better judgment into a lust for her so passionate and unreasoned that he attempts to woo Mrs. Farrell away from Easton while Easton is too ill to rise from his sickbed. GILBERT. DUDE.
(Mrs. Farrell, no angel, but a better man than Gilbert, ultimately begs Gilbert's sister-in-law to use her influence to make him leave before any more mischief can be wrought. Exeunt Gilbert, much wroth.)
"At the best," Howells muses, "love is fatal to friendship; the most that friendship can do is to listen to love’s talk of itself and be the confident of its rapturous joys, its transports of despair. The lover fancies himself all the fonder of his friend because of his passion for his mistress, but in reality he has no longer any need of the old comrade..." And so forth. Passionate male friendships were seen as a specific life-stage thing: they're sweet for young men in their teens and twenties, but they're meant to be set aside when as young men grow up and get married.
( Spoilers for the ending )
