Masters of the Short Story #1: Balzac, Pushkin, Merimée, and Hawthorne

 Finding my mind blocked by an inexplicable haze when trying to read my current books, I picked up a 1972 compendium, Masters of the Short Story sitting on my shelf which had been purchased and abandoned here by my father when he had previously visited.  His bookmark was still placed in the middle.  I decided to start at the beginning which, owing to my general ignorance of the topic, I presume to be roughly chronological.  At least, it begins with Balzac and ends with Camus, and it seems quite unlikely that "27 great stories" are authored by people whose names would fit between them alphabetically.  Either way, just finished the first few and thought I'd sketch down some thoughts.

Balzac - A Passion in the Desert

He smiled, shook his head knowingly, and said, "Well known."
"How 'well known'?" I said.  If you would only explain to me the mystery I should be vastly obliged.

Once when I was writing my analysis of Pale Cocoon it came into my head to title it, "What Was She Looking At?"  It was a bit of an inspired choice, if I do say so myself, because the entire work centers around giving context to an "answer" which cannot be understood otherwise.

Passion has this same element.  Before us ostensibly is the answer, but what we lack is the vision to make it comprehensible.  That's the purpose of the story, and I admit it surprised me because what rudimentary knowledge I had of Balzac had him painted in my mind as a man of society.  He was writing The Human Comedy after all, with the implication in my mind that I would be hearing a lot about the socialites of Paris.  Instead we're stranded far from any of that with none of the usual props used to maintain our interest.  It's the reminisce of an old man, so we know he survives, and the events which would normally form the height of the tension are glossed over.  His capture is prelude, his killing the leopard and subsequent rescue a postscript.  Which is another way of saying the real focus, the real "action", lies elsewhere, and lends to the story a kind of contemplativeness despite the thrilling adventure it recounts:

"Yes, but explain---"
"Well," he said, with an impatient gesture, "it is God without mankind."

Then the final lines, which make it complete.  It is to the story's credit that I'm still trying to formulate the relationship of it all.  It is somehow a reflection on the start, an event which hushes the beginning chatter and despairs of explaining itself to the impertinently ignorant.  These man and woman are making table talk of something that is quite beyond them, and the old soldier is like a Zen master who knows that his second answer will be as cryptic as the first to the uninitiated.

[Addition since I have read a few more: it reminds me of the stories of Stevenson and Conrad.  Balzac, having mastered the human scene, seems in this unusual moment to also trace its limits and give a small glimpse of what he thinks lies beyond.  And it is only in the desert, away from other people, that we can come to such a view.]

Pushkin - The Queen of Spades

I have little to say about this one.  The editors' preface describes it as eminently Romantic, and Romantic it is, with strong vices, midnight confrontations, death, specters, and insanity.  This is a case where I was carried along more by the art of the writing than what was said, and indeed I found myself rather enjoying the characterization of the side-flavor Tomsky more than the main actors.  It really was a bit of genius how this personality, who plays no larger role in the story except to connect through rumor the main characters, nonetheless is granted a kind of detailed shallowness that is memorable.

Mérimée - Mateo Falcone

Simple, spare, short, but with economical clarity... and unfortunately the editors spoiled it for me.  Their opening description tell you exactly what is going to happen, and this is a tale where you are best going into it blind.  It's not that it's bad otherwise, since I think works that rely wholly on their "twist" are short-lived, but that its point is not punctuated as clearly.

Namely, I knew the son was going to be killed by the father from the beginning.  But what get us is the grim dawning of what is happening at the end, because even knowing what was coming I half didn't believe it based on how the father was acting.  It's not that he was misleading, but that he was so unerringly committed to it; no doubts, no qualms.  If he had sadness, it was nothing compared to his unwavering values.  He is a supreme creature of his place and time, and like Brutus (not the Caesar-killing one) he was perfectly content to have his offspring sacrificed for transgression what he believes is right.

The women weep, but he is not swayed in his choice.  While revulsion is the natural reaction, I can't help but find that Mérimée has captured something more than heartless brutality.  He lives on the edge of the outlaw area, but is not one; his skill in marksmanship somehow tied to his perfect adaptation to his role.  It's like how Tolstoy leads off Hadji Marad by likening him to a thistle he finds by the side of the road, a hearty plant that has made that place its home.  Again, I just wish it hadn't been spoiled.

Hawthorne - Wakefield

I admit, I went into this one with a bias: I don't have fond memories of A Scarlet Letter.  There's something abjectly didactic about Hawthorne that even I, who doesn't mind a bit of moralizing in my stories, still have trouble digesting.  It's the strong flavor of Puritanism that hasn't been really shaken off, even if he doesn't quite share the old values.  But as it went on he conquered my prejudice, and I can even point to the line where my opinion turned a corner:

"A morbid vanity, therefore, lies nearest the bottom of the affair."

What's remarkable about this story is that it's an unremarkable person doing a remarkable thing for believably unremarkable reasons.  That's... I'm not sure I've encountered that as effectively before this.  We can credit to this act a strange accident of character.  His 'quiet selfishness, that had rusted into his inactive mind', 'a peculiar sort of vanity', and 'a disposition to craft, which had seldom produced more positive effects than the keeping of petty secrets, hardly worth revealing.'  None of these elements are noteworthy in themselves, but they conspire together with circumstance, and it's that which really speaks to me, for even if Hawthorne and I are worlds apart in many ways, we're the same in our sense of contingency in human life.

Poor Wakefield!  Little knowest thou thine own insignificance in this great world!"

Here is this man who just... somehow wants to emphasize that he matters.  That he will go away and watch as the world changes, like an inverse It's a Wonderful Life wherein nothing really changes but he feels strangely confirmed in it anyway.  That he thinks he can step back into it at the end is the height of folly, as though somehow the world revolves around him and therefore couldn't possibly ever fail to incorporate him.  Which I don't know Hawthorne's total view, but there are flickers here that he's onto a fear of a world without God.  That a man like Wakefield can remove himself from context and just... vanish, and that this usual bustle of connections only falsely confirms us as having orientation.  Just Wakefield is too small-minded to grasp the implications while we're left to wonder about them.

[Another addendum: after writing this I spoke with several people about it and developed my thoughts more fully.  I came to appreciate that this story has the structure of a morality play but none of its content, that Hawthorne's decrying and exclamations were like a Greek chorus, coming in to offer their comment on the story in a ritualistic fashion where his readers would expect them to speak up, but that without the usual actors of God, the devil, etc. they are curiously misplaced.  Even if Hawthorne is no longer a Puritan he still possesses a fascination with our sinfulness, here demonstrated as an acme of smallmindedness acting out its unreflected impulses, an extreme case of what are otherwise the normal operations of the human mind.]