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Book Review: The Undiscovered Country
Oct. 31st, 2021 08:43 amI had high hopes for William Dean Howells’ The Undiscovered Country, because his books Mrs. Farrell and The Shadow of a Dream were such treasure troves, and also because John Crowley quoted SUCH an intriguing passage in The Mask of Fiction, albeit a passage that Howells cut before publication:
"And,--I'm fascinating?" asked Ford.
"Oh yes,--to women, and to undecided men like myself. Didn't you know it?", Phillips tells him.
“DID HOWELLS CUT IT BECAUSE IT WAS TOO GAY?” I cried hopefully.
But having read the book, I have sadly concluded that Howells cut it because the book ended up moving in an entirely different direction: that passage is clearly from Ford & Phillips’ first meeting, and the book as it stands now begins long after their friendship is established. In fact the book mostly concerns Ford’s romance with Egeria Boynton, whose honest but monstrously egotistical hypnotist father is exhibiting her as a spiritualist medium. (Howells often calls Egeria’s psychic powers “psychological powers,” which took some getting used to.)
However, eventually Mr. Boynton realizes that he has made a mistake in attempting honest spiritualist research among the mediums of Boston, who are mostly frauds (the rationalizations by which he first excuses and then excoriates this fraud are fascinating), and flees the city with the hope of continuing his research among the Shakers.
I love the Shakers and am always happy when they make an unexpected appearance. This is only the second book I’ve read where they’ve done so, and in Susan Coolidge’s Eyebright they showed up for a mere chapter, but HERE we get chapter upon chapter set in the Shaker community! Oh my God. What have I done to merit this blessing?
So ultimately I felt that I was well recompensed, even though my original hopes for the book were disappointed: Phillips only appears a few times, and the friendship doesn’t actually seem all that attached.
(Phillips is however interesting because he seems like an early iteration of what would become the upper-class Oscar Wilde stereotype of a homosexual. The book was published in 1890, years before Wilde's trial, but given that Howells knew everyone in the literary scene he may well have met Wilde.)
Such men as Phillips consorted with were of the feminine temperament, like artists and musicians (he had a pretty taste in music); or else they were of the intensely masculine sort, like Ford, to whom he had attached himself. He liked to have their queer intimacy noted, and to talk of it with the ladies of his circle, finding it as much of a mystery as he could… He bore much from him in the way of contemptuous sarcasm; it illustrated the strange fascination which such a man as Ford had for such a man as Phillips. He lay in wait for his friend’s characteristics, and when he had surprised this trait or that in him he was fond of exhibiting his capture.
The tie that bound Ford, on his part, to Phillips was not tangible; it was hardly more than force of habit, or like an indifferent yielding to the advances made by the latter.
At times Ford’s indifference and Phillips’ irrepressibility are actually rather funny, as here, when Phillips has at last succeeded in browbeating Ford into going on a trip with him:
“Oh, I’ll go with you,” said Ford listlessly.
“Good!” cried Phillips. “This is the fire of youth. If we get sick of it, we can send the mare back from any given point, and take to the rails. That is one of the advantages of having rails. It makes travel by the country roads a luxury, and not a necessary. I fancy we shall feel almost wicked in the pursuit of our journey,--it will be such unalloyed pleasure.”
Unfortunately for Phillips, this journey deposits them at the self-same Shaker community where Egeria and her father are staying. After much rigmarole, Ford and Egeria fall in love, to which Phillips responds at first with indignation (“'Going to marry her!' cried Phillips,") and then resignation: “I suspect I’ve done my last talking to Ford.”
And Phillips is quite correct: the marriage ends the friendship, if “friendship” is quite the right word for a relation that was pretty well one-sided from the beginning.“It has been observed by those who formerly knew him that marriage has greatly softened him, and Phillips professes that, robbed of his former roughness, [Ford] is no longer so fascinating. Their acquaintance can scarcely be said to have been renewed since their parting in Vardley...”
In conclusion, a fascinating book if you’re interested in nineteenth century views of spiritualism, Shakers, the decline of religious feeling in the wake of Darwin, or the slow decay of the countryside as young people flock to the cities for industrial jobs. Much less gay than Mrs. Farrell, The Shadow of a Dream, or The Coast of Bohemia, however.
"And,--I'm fascinating?" asked Ford.
"Oh yes,--to women, and to undecided men like myself. Didn't you know it?", Phillips tells him.
“DID HOWELLS CUT IT BECAUSE IT WAS TOO GAY?” I cried hopefully.
But having read the book, I have sadly concluded that Howells cut it because the book ended up moving in an entirely different direction: that passage is clearly from Ford & Phillips’ first meeting, and the book as it stands now begins long after their friendship is established. In fact the book mostly concerns Ford’s romance with Egeria Boynton, whose honest but monstrously egotistical hypnotist father is exhibiting her as a spiritualist medium. (Howells often calls Egeria’s psychic powers “psychological powers,” which took some getting used to.)
However, eventually Mr. Boynton realizes that he has made a mistake in attempting honest spiritualist research among the mediums of Boston, who are mostly frauds (the rationalizations by which he first excuses and then excoriates this fraud are fascinating), and flees the city with the hope of continuing his research among the Shakers.
I love the Shakers and am always happy when they make an unexpected appearance. This is only the second book I’ve read where they’ve done so, and in Susan Coolidge’s Eyebright they showed up for a mere chapter, but HERE we get chapter upon chapter set in the Shaker community! Oh my God. What have I done to merit this blessing?
So ultimately I felt that I was well recompensed, even though my original hopes for the book were disappointed: Phillips only appears a few times, and the friendship doesn’t actually seem all that attached.
(Phillips is however interesting because he seems like an early iteration of what would become the upper-class Oscar Wilde stereotype of a homosexual. The book was published in 1890, years before Wilde's trial, but given that Howells knew everyone in the literary scene he may well have met Wilde.)
Such men as Phillips consorted with were of the feminine temperament, like artists and musicians (he had a pretty taste in music); or else they were of the intensely masculine sort, like Ford, to whom he had attached himself. He liked to have their queer intimacy noted, and to talk of it with the ladies of his circle, finding it as much of a mystery as he could… He bore much from him in the way of contemptuous sarcasm; it illustrated the strange fascination which such a man as Ford had for such a man as Phillips. He lay in wait for his friend’s characteristics, and when he had surprised this trait or that in him he was fond of exhibiting his capture.
The tie that bound Ford, on his part, to Phillips was not tangible; it was hardly more than force of habit, or like an indifferent yielding to the advances made by the latter.
At times Ford’s indifference and Phillips’ irrepressibility are actually rather funny, as here, when Phillips has at last succeeded in browbeating Ford into going on a trip with him:
“Oh, I’ll go with you,” said Ford listlessly.
“Good!” cried Phillips. “This is the fire of youth. If we get sick of it, we can send the mare back from any given point, and take to the rails. That is one of the advantages of having rails. It makes travel by the country roads a luxury, and not a necessary. I fancy we shall feel almost wicked in the pursuit of our journey,--it will be such unalloyed pleasure.”
Unfortunately for Phillips, this journey deposits them at the self-same Shaker community where Egeria and her father are staying. After much rigmarole, Ford and Egeria fall in love, to which Phillips responds at first with indignation (“'Going to marry her!' cried Phillips,") and then resignation: “I suspect I’ve done my last talking to Ford.”
And Phillips is quite correct: the marriage ends the friendship, if “friendship” is quite the right word for a relation that was pretty well one-sided from the beginning.“It has been observed by those who formerly knew him that marriage has greatly softened him, and Phillips professes that, robbed of his former roughness, [Ford] is no longer so fascinating. Their acquaintance can scarcely be said to have been renewed since their parting in Vardley...”
In conclusion, a fascinating book if you’re interested in nineteenth century views of spiritualism, Shakers, the decline of religious feeling in the wake of Darwin, or the slow decay of the countryside as young people flock to the cities for industrial jobs. Much less gay than Mrs. Farrell, The Shadow of a Dream, or The Coast of Bohemia, however.
