Archive for the ‘Victorian Spiritualism’ Category
Catching Up pt. 2: Imperial Reckoning, The Thing Around Your Neck, The Warden, Other Powers, The Bone People
Elkins began researching the Mau Mau uprising for her dissertation, but the history she uncovered was so much more brutal than the (brutal) murders of white British settlers that she set out to find. This book was the product of a decades’ worth of research into the detention, starvation, and torture of over half a million of one of Kenya’s largest minority ethnic groups, the Kikuyu, by the colonial British in the 1950’s. Less than ten years after joining the fight against Germany in WWII, the British forced almost all of Kenya’s Kikuyu into concentration camps of their own, where they were subject to all of the same dehumanizing treatments that could be found in Germany’s death camps short of outright genocide–very short. By rhetorically framing the Mau Mau resurrection as barbarism and the Kikuyu as uncivilized, they were able to extinguish categorical distinctions between the two, equating all Kikuyu with Mau Mau, and denounce them for their dangerous natures, thereby justifying their detainment. The murders of tens of white settler families committed by the Mau Mau in defense of stolen land were certainly horrific, but the persistent labeling of them as terrorists (as well as subhuman), as opposed to freedom fighters in defense of a legitimate cause, was strategically meant to detract attention from the widespread systematic violence enacted upon the Kikuyu by the British over the course of a decade in a deadly show of authority. In case that distraction wasn’t enough, colonial offices were very thorough at destroying evidence. Nonetheless, Elkins painstakingly uncovers and describes each stage of “The Pipeline” camp system and reveals the identity of those who participated in the maintaining the camps, including missionary groups. Equally disturbing was the way in which the British rewarded “saved” or “confessed” Kikuyu with official status within the camps and set up their recently colonized Indian underclass as military officers, small business owners, and politicians within Kenya, sowing seeds of disunity that would persist through Kenyan independence in the 60’s. I read this book for my Kenya project, and it also counts toward Kinna’s Africa challenge. It was mind-blowing to read this while actually in Kenya, and to understand that despite the culture of silence around these events, the wounds are so recent, the country is so young, the human capacity for evil is so strong.
Adichie became an instant favorite of mine after reading Half of a Yellow Sun and seeing her participate in a talk last spring at the Met on something like The Hero in African art. This collection of short stories deals with the Nigerian diaspora: what it takes to leave the country, what it means to be representative of the country, what it means to be a Nigerian outside of Nigeria, what it means to be someone neither here nor there. If you’ve watched Adichie’s bit on The Danger of a Single Story, you know that she’s particularly interested in the ways in which we frame our own self-understandings, and the need to assert them on our own terms so that they’re not obscured and made homogenous by the dominant culture. Her subjects come from a variety of backgrounds and deal with the feeling of dislocation in different ways and settings. This theme was made most explicit in the story “The American Embassy”, in which a woman wonders how best to present her difficult past to the authorities, how to manipulate the too-real danger she’s in in such a way that they will understand and grant her asylum. My favorite story, though, was “Jumping Monkey Hill”, about a Nigerian woman writer who must defend her piece as “authentically African” to a workshop led by a sexually harassing older man in South Africa who insists that the behavior of her protagonist is unrealistic. The final story, “The Headstrong Historian”, reminded me of The River and the Source in the way that it portrayed the passing effects of generations on one family, though it was slightly more ambivalent about the outcome. Of course, some stories stuck with me better than others, but there weren’t any in this collection that I didn’t enjoy or find interesting at some level.
In this novel, the introduction to the Chronicles of Barsetshire, the clergyman Mr. Harding enjoys a comfortable country existence with his daughter, Eleanor, as warden of a home for the old and infirm. The young city reformer John Bold, however, takes issue with the sizable amount that Mr. Harding receives for this position, pointing out that, at the time of the will, the law was such that the difference in allowance between Mr. Harding’s and his wards would have been less, that certainly the will was not written with recent changes in land tax and such in mind that has so unfairly benefitted Mr. Harding instead of the institution’s poor elderly. In taking legal action and turning the wards against him, Bold risks more than the ill-will of Mr. Harding’s church community–he risks losing the love of his life, Mr. Harding’s daughter. However, the battle between Bold and Harding is not so simple, for Mr. Harding, having never given the issue much thought, is horrified to think he might be living immorally, and Bold increasingly wonders whether the potential ruin of lover’s father, a good man, is worth the point he wishes to make about economic inequality. I found Trollope’s descriptions of the setting evocative, and liked that most of his characters were made multi-dimensional in relatively few pages. However, I thought The Warden was kind of boring. Differing interpretations of a will, all of which might imply only slightly different outcomes, wasn’t enough to make me feel any kind of tension or suspense. I wasn’t invested. A subplot or two might have helped, but then The Warden would had to have been a completely different book. I read this one because pretty much everyone everywhere has always told me that it’s great (okay, a *slight* exaggeration), but I was underwhelmed. If I didn’t like The Warden all that much, might I enjoy the rest of the series? Or should I assume it’s not for me?
Victoria Woodhull, at different times a prostitute, free lover, spiritualist, suffragist, and a presidential candidate, lived during one of the most outrageously transformative eras of American history: the second half of the 19th century. She was such an enigmatic and adventurous character that, in this book, Goldsmith is able to use her personal history to bring to life the entire period of reform and conflict. She touches on everything from the Civil War and abolition to Reformation and the western expansion of the railroad, the declining reign of circus entertainment and the post-Gold Rush market crash to the successes and failures of early feminist organizations and the celebrity awarded spiritualist seers and mediums. At the center of Goldsmith’s narrative, though, is Woodhull’s influence on the Beecher-Tilton adultery trial, a trial that held the public in thrall for over two years as they awaited the verdict on the fidelity of Henry Ward Beecher, one of America’s favorite preachers. This event speaks worlds about the sexual politics of the day as they were typically understood by the public at large, and as they were challenged vociferously by Woodhull. If this makes it sound as though Goldsmith might have been too ambitious with this book, as though this was simply too much to try to cover all at once, I would understand. But, believe me: Goldsmith DOES IT. AND she makes it look easy. She connects the dots, weaving a thick fabric of different historical threads that really DO all come together in a very clear and satisfying picture. And through it all, Woodhull is not lost. Widely ostracized in her own time by almost all of her contemporaries working equally hard to hasten justice, Goldsmith brilliantly portrays Woodhull as complex, erratic, imperfect, and catalytic. This might be the BEST book about American history I’ve ever read, so I urge all with a passing interest to give it a try. I’ll go so far as to say I’ll be shocked if it doesn’t fully engage and absorb you. I can’t wait to encounter Goldsmith again! And: despite the fact that it wasn’t on my initial list, I’m going to go ahead and count this book towards my spiritualism project, since Woodhull was a popular spiritualist figure and I did learn some new things about what that meant at the time, so why not.
Ooof, The Bone People. Where to start with this one?! Kerewin is part Maori, part European, and lives on the coast of her native New Zealand in an old lighthouse tower with a spiral staircase. She’s a failed painter, incredibly bitter and misanthropic, desiring no company but wine, whiskey, rum…or whatever alcohol’s around. But company finds its way to her in the form of a strange young boy who can’t speak, yet communicates worlds of mysterious origin and pain. When she meets his adoptive father and finds something about the sad man alluring, she becomes swept up in their bizarre, severely dysfunctional little patchwork family. With each member representing different aspects of culture clash, Kerewin must revisit her own past even as they’re focused on uncovering the boy’s. Unfortunately, they are all so focused on what’s happened that they’re blinded to the inevitable future of hurt that lays before them, one from which they may or may not heal. Hulme’s writing is exceptional. I’ve never read prose quite like hers, so playful and clever yet…harsh. The real magic of the book is the subtle sense of foreboding you feel from the first few pages, a sense that only grows stronger despite a lack of tangible evidence that it should. This odd tale had me on tenterhooks before I realized there really was something to be concerned about, here. Namely, the psychology of abuse, so frighteningly dissected. The power of this novel had me jaw-dropped, but it’s likely not for everyone, particularly those with special sensitivities to violence against children. The one thing I wished for more of was Kerewin’s familial backstory; I hoped that the more mythological part at the end would wrap up more neatly and concretely. Regardless, this book has haunted me since I finished it, and I’m sure I won’t forget it any time soon.
Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism, by Barbara Weisberg
In the late 1840’s, Kate (age 12) and Maggie (age 15) excitedly reported that they heard “rappings”, or knocking sounds, emanating invisibly from the walls of their Hydesville, NY home. Not only did the origins of the mysterious sounds defy all scientific explanation, but they seemed to reflect a knowing, responsive consciousness. Tales of the Fox girls’ communication with spirits spread rapidly, and American spiritualism was born. For the rest of their lives as mediums, the Fox sisters spearheaded a movement that would forever change popular ideas about death and the afterlife in both America and Europe, and toured as celebrities in an era when most women were strictly limited to the dependent, domestic sphere of the home.
The Fox sisters pronounced themselves spirit mediums at a time of drastic change in mainstream American life caused by increased mobility, urbanization, religious developments, and problems of social in/equality. These changes prompted Americans to grapple with the following questions (p. 6-7):
Shall we pack our worldly goods and journey westward? Or leave the farm behind and head for the city?
Are our struggles moving us upward on the social ladder, or have our risks only pushed us down a notch?
Is our society advancing toward utopian perfection? Or under new pressures…is it descending into chaos?
Those of us who are women–will we stay placidly at home or step out into the street, into the labor force, into public life?
Those of us who are enslaved–will we remain in bondage or march forward into freedom?
…am I bound for heaven or hell?
…what control do we have over any of our destinations?
Weisberg notes that the Calvinist concept of pre-destination was too unforgiving to satisfy the needs of those so troubled by uncertainty, and a discursive space was opened up wherein “the girls’ appeal surely stemmed in part from the ways they embodied–and intuited–their culture’s anxieties and ambitions” (p. 7). It is little wonder, then, that spiritualism was received most warmly in reformist circles by those already working to stretch the boundaries of society.
Though immensely popular, Kate, Maggie, and their older sister Leah were not without detractors. Indeed, they were subject to a number of invasive investigations, including public searches of their near naked bodies by councils of scientists determined to uncover the secrets of the “fraudulent females” (p. 81). To this day, the truth about the origins of the sisters’ rappings remains unknown; Weisberg engages debate about the authenticity of the events that occurred around the Fox sisters as well as possible explanations for them, but doesn’t dwell on them too much, which I liked. Those lingering questions are intriguing, but there’s so much more to this story worth looking at.
What was most interesting to me were the ways in which the Fox sisters were almost solely responsible for creating a new, public occupation for women: that of the medium. Mediumship was provocative; it took place in close quarters amongst mixed company under dim lights and required hand holding and whispering. It was sexy, intimidating, and provided women an independence through public demonstrations that they might not have gained had they been considered the primary actors in spirit communication and not only “passive media”, constitutionally weak and at the mercy of pushy ghosts. They troubled normative gender ideologies without completely dispelling them. The public was generally ambivalent about them, revering them at times and lambasting them for impropriety at others.
Impressively, Weisberg is able to make sense of the tensions found in mid-19th-century America at large without losing sight of the sisters themselves. As they grew into older, they each experienced the kinds of tragic breakdowns that we’ve sadly come to expect from people who’ve been followed so closely by the media and featured regularly in tabloids throughout the whole of their childhoods, adolescence, and young adulthood. The lively, charismatic sisters eventually fell into conflict with each other (mostly Kate and Maggie with Leah, the significantly older sister who managed their careers before becoming a medium herself and was widely thought to be manipulative and exploitative), succumbed to alcoholism, and died in poverty. Despite the limited knowledge we have of them as individuals, Weisberg highlights what she can of their personalities, lending them strength as complex and memorable people.
Weisberg has written a wonderful biography that manages to tell a story not only about the Fox sisters, who are incredibly fascinating on their own, but also a nation struggling to re-invent itself. The text is littered with fun trivia, too, including the origins of the term “con man” and speculations about the reason for Benjamin Franklin’s status as the most commonly manifested spirit amongst American mediums. This book was the first read for my 19th century spiritualism project, and it was a great place to start. Weisberg provided me with compelling human stories through which to understand the larger cultural shifts that helped the spread of spiritualism and provided an excellent platform, I think, from which to continue my exploration of spiritualism; particularly its gender implications in both the American and European contexts. Recommended for those interested in 19th century America, gender, celebrity, and/or the possibilities of spirit communication!
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