Ek het literatuur deur en oor die skrywer Henry James (1843-1916) via inligting oor sy broer, die filosoof en sielkundige William (1842-1910), leer ken. Danksy sodanige Henry-teks het ek met die werk van Edmund Gosse (1849-1928, SêNet. 25,26,27.03.2013) en Edith Wharton (1862-1937) kennis gemaak. Wharton bly vir my 'n interessante geval. As kreatiewe kunstenaar was sy haar lewe lank soos 'n bokser wat bokant haar gewigsafdeling wou presteer. Die anonieme outeur van die inleiding tot haar outobiografie (besonderhede hieronder) skryf: "She had a limited perspective and she rarely chose to look outside it" (Kindle 183). 'n Mens kan ook sê Wharton was soos die maan wat lig van die son weerkaats het. Henry James was daardie son; hierna James genoem. Ek skryf hier veral oor hom.
Sowel James as Wharton was Amerikaners. James het 'n voorliefde vir Engeland gehad en daar gaan woon. Wharton het Europese kultuur bo dié van Amerika verkies en haar in 1907 deels en in 1911 voltyds in Frankryk gevestig. Van huis uit was sy welgesteld en het as kind dikwels in Europa gereis en gewoon. Op hierdie manier het sy vroeg Italiaans, Duits en veral Frans baasgeraak en leesstof van hoë gehalte in hierdie tale en in Engels verslind. Haar pa se boekversameling (sowat 800 bande) het hierin van vroeg in haar lewe 'n belangrike rol gespeel. Aanvanklik het sy graag veral poësie gelees: "Great poetry ... came to me fresh as the morning, with the dew on it, and has never lost that early glow" (784). Omstreeks 1900 het sy met James bevriend geraak. Hy was toe reeds 'n gevestigde skrywer en bekend daarvoor dat hy moeite gedoen het om jonger skrywers touwys te maak. Wharton skryf James was "always so helpful and hospitable to younger writers" (2228).
Om aan Wharton literêre leiding te gee, was vir James nogal moeilik, want hy het reeds al hoe meer verknog aan 'n bepaalde literêre resep geraak. Wharton: "His latest novels, for all their profound moral beauty, seemed to me more and more lacking in atmosphere, more and more severed from that thick nourishing human air in which we all live and move" (2441). James was die toonbeeld van goeie maniere en bedag daarop om nie aanstoot te gee nie. Omsigtigheidshalwe het hy sy kritiek versuiker, maar eerlikheidshalwe kon hy dit nie verswyg nie; soos: "Admirable, admirable; a masterly little achievement" (2320). Vriendskap met Wharton het vir James voordele ingehou omdat sy welvarend was en hy hom deurgaans oor sy beperkte finansiële vermoëns bekommer het. Sy het 'n motor gehad en motorritte was seker die gesogste vorm van ontspanning wat James geken het. "This mode of locomotion seemed to him ... an immense enlargement of life" (2274).
Dit was vir Wharton 'n prestigesaak om James by haar aan huis te hê en ook om by hom tuis te gaan. "Playing host to Wharton was always a trial and an expense for James, but he was glad te see her, to return her hospitality, and grateful for the automobile" (Sheldon M Novick, Henry James: The Mature Master, New York: Random House, 2007, p 487). Soms was daar 'n hemelsbreë verskil tussen wat Wharton wou hê hy moet doen en wat vir James geleë was. James: "She was like [the archangel] Michael driving Satan" (p 411).
Edith Jones is in 1885 met die welvarende Edward (Teddy) Wharton (1850-1928) getroud. Aanvanklik het albei 'n voorliefde vir reis, veral in Frankryk en Italië, gehad. In haar outobiografie noem sy dit "an incurable passion for the road" (592). Hierdie egpaar het aanvanklik elke jaar vier maande lank gereis. Edith het baie in argitektuur en tuinbou gelang gestel. Sy het graag sosiaal in aristokratiese en literêre kringe verkeer. Terugskouend kon sy sê dat sy naas skryfwerk "a busy and hospitable life" gehad het, "full of friends and travel, reading and gardening" (2647). Teddy het uitgesluit gevoel, onder meer omdat hy die Europese tale glad nie so goed soos Edith magtig was nie. Hy het depressief geraak en ook verhoudings met ander vroue aangeknoop. Hy het van Edith se geld gesteel om aan 'n vriendin te gee, wat in 1913 'n einde aan die Whartons se kinderlose huwelik gemaak het.
Dit beteken nie dat Edith die onskuldige party was nie. Van 1906 tot 1909 het sy 'n verhouding met die joernalis Morton Fullerton (1865-1952) gehad. Hy was deel van James se vriendekring, wat mense soos Edmund Gosse, Walter Berry (1859-1927) en Howard Sturgis (1855-1920) ingesluit het; almal mense wat in 1895 hoogs ontsteld oor die uitspraak in die Oscar Wilde-hofsaak was. Edith het uitstekend by hierdie vriendekring ingepas en hulle geselskap geniet; des te meer wanneer James deel daarvan was. Sy noem dit "mental comradeship" (2181).
In haar outobiografie, A Backward Glance (London: Moorside Press, 286p, 1934/2013; Amazon Kindle $2.99), noem Edith skaars vir Teddy en sy verwys nie na Fullerton nie. Sy skryf wel oor Geoffrey Scott (1884-1929) wat haar metgesel in haar latere lewe was en haar belangstelling in argitektuur en tuinbou gedeel het. Scott is 'n interessante figuur wat kontak met Vita Sackville-West, John Maynard Keynes en Bernard Berenson gehad het en die redakteur van James Boswell se literêre nalatenskap was.
In haar outobiografie wou Wharton glad nie die romanties-intieme deel van haar lewe belig nie: "I have had to make the best of unsensational material" (232). Sy moes grootliks op haar geheue staatmaak, want sy het eers teen 1918 met dagboekinskrywings begin. Die teks handel veral oor haar sosiale en literêre vriende. Die anonieme outeur van die inleiding noem dit "a writer's memoir" (204). Daar is 'n hoofstuk wat aan James gewy is, maar in ander hoofstukke is daar ook heelwat inligting oor hom.
Die lagwekkendste deel van die boek is wanneer Whaton vertel hoe James graag die motorbestuurder ingelig het oor watter rigting hy moet inslaan sodat hulle by hulle bestemming kon uitkom. Woordryk het James meesal verkeerd beduie, maar hy het dit sy plig geag omdat dit mos hy was en nie hulle nie wat Engeland geken het. "Like many men of genius he had a singular inability for dealing with the most ordinary daily incidents, such as giving an order to a servant, deciding what to wear, taking a railway ticket, or getting from one place to another" (2399).
Aan die begin van die boek sonder Wharton drie kenmerke van die ouderdom uit: "sorrow", "habit" en "inertia" (213). "Caprice is as ruinous as routine. Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive ... one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways" (217). Later skryf sy: "The intellectually eager and enquiring are seldom serenely and unquestioningly good" (2062).
Soos James wou Wharton graag goeie Engels skryf. "This feeling for good English was more than reverence, and nearer: it was love" (820). "It would have been 'bad manners' to speak 'bad' English, and 'bad manners' were the supreme offence" (843). [Baie hedendaagse Afrikaanse skrywers kan gerus hiervan kennis neem. Ek kyk selde televisie en luister min radio omdat ek Afrikaans wat met onnodige Engelse woorde besoedel is as aanstootlik ervaar.] Sy het bv waargeneem dat familielede van kontinentale oorsprong minder goeie Engels gepraat het as dié wat van Brittanje gekom het.
Toe Wharton met haar literêre loopbaan begin het, is skrywers nie hoog in Amerika geag nie. "Authorship was still regarded as something between a black art and a form of manual labour" (1030). Selfs later "none of my relations ever spoke to me of my books, either to praise or blame - they simply ignored them ... the subject was avoided as though it were a kind of family disgrace" (1887). Haar eerste gepubliseerde boek (1897) het oor huisversiering gehandel. "The architects of that day looked down on house-decoration as a branch of dress-making, and left the field to the upholsterers" (1467).
Selfs na haar eerste boek "I had as yet no real personality of my own, and was not to acquire one till my first volume of short stories was published" in 1899 (1525). Sy het oor die skryfkuns besin en geëksperimenteer en tot die gevolgtrekking gekom "the soul of the novel ... should be the writer's own soul" (1560). Ook: "You can ask your reader to believe whatever you can induce him to believe" (1914). "The Land of Letters was henceforth to be my country, and I gloried in my new citizenship" (1610). "I never questioned that story-telling was my job, though I doubted whether I should be able to cross the chasm which separated the nouvelle from the novel" (1606). "Egerton Wintrop [1839-1916] ... urged my husband to go to London with me for a few weeks every year, so that I might at least meet a few men of letters" (1654), "but my husband was bored in London" (1661). "It is always depressing to live with the dissatisfied" (1664).
Sy vertel hoe sommige van haar boeke ontstaan het. "I shall try to depict the growth and unfolding of the plants in my secret garden" (2537). In die proses van storievertel beskou sy tegniek en inspirasie as van deurslaggewende belang. 'n Belangrike vereiste is "inevitableness" (2601), oftewel noodwendigheid. Soms het sy aan 'n situasie of opset gedink voordat sy dit met karakters bevolk het. 'n Roman moet meer wees as "isolated character studies, or the stringing together of picturesque episodes" (2624). Sy het John Tyndall (1820-1893) se raad gevolg: "Look into it till it became luminous" (2624).
"There are but two essential rules: one, that the novelist should deal only with what is within his reach ... and the other that the value of a subject depends almost wholly on what the author sees in it, and how deeply he is able to see into it" (2631) "The problem was how to extract from such a subject the typical human significance which is the story-teller's reason for telling one story rather than another" (2639). Vir die skrywer is die dissipline om gereeld, bv daagliks, te skryf ook belangrik. Sy het 'n boek oor hierdie onderwerp geskryf: The Writing of Fiction (1925).
Robert Minturn (1836-1889) het dieselfde voorliefdes as Wharton gehad: "The love of art and letters, the love of nature ... a sensitive lover of words, indefatigable in the quest of their uses and meanings, handling them as a gardener does his flowers ... To the last his interest in all the worthwhile things kept his poor worn body aglow, and if ever a craft went down with colours flying it was that which bore the shining soul of Bob Minturn" (2066).
Hoofstuk 8 handel spesifiek oor Henry James en hoofstuk 10 veral oor sy vriende. Wharton betreur dit dat sy nie 'n James Boswell is wat kon onthou en rekordeer wat Henry James in haar geselskap gesê het nie. Dit is bekend dat James (sommige van) sy boeke gedikteer het; dat hy mondeling en in druk ewe welsprekend was. "I have never known a case in which an author's talk and his books so enlarged and supplemented each other" (2278). "Everything he said was so splendid" (2288).
Na hulle eerste ontmoeting, "probably in the late 'eighties" (2206), was daar nie dadelik 'n vriendskapsband nie. "When we first met I was still struck dumb in the presence of greatness" (2206). Later "it was as if we had always been friends, and were to go on being (as he wrote to me in February 1910) 'more and more never apart'" (2224). "He called me 'the pendulum-woman' because I crossed the Atlantic every year!" (2270). "Henry James was perhaps the most intimate friend I ever had, though in many ways we were so different" (2231). Wharton noem in 'n ander konteks dat groot verskille by literêre kunstenaars soms oorbrug kan word. Byvoorbeeld, James het Walt Whitman as die grootste Amerikaanse digter beskou. Daarvan sê Wharton: "Above a certain level, the most divergent intelligences walk together like gods" (2389).
James het in 1896 uit Londen na Rye, Oos-Sussex, aan die suid-ooskus, getrek "to live in the country ... and in his new solitude he had come to grips with his genius" (2238). "He belonged irrevocably to the old America" (2252). "Henry James was essentially a novelist of manners, and the manners he was qualified by nature and situation to observe were those of the little vanishing group of people among whom he had grown up, or their more picturesque prototypes in older societies" (2264).
"His slow way of speech, sometimes mistaken for affectation ... was really the partial victory over a stammer which in his boyhood had been thought incurable. The elaborate politeness and the involved phraseology that made off-hand intercourse with him so difficult to casual acquaintances probably sprang from the same defect" (2282). "To James's intimates ... these elaborate hesitancies, far from being an obstacle, were like a cobweb bridge flung from his mind to theirs" (2291).
"His letters, delightful as they are, give but hints and fragments of his talk" (2295). "In the writing of his tales a tidy mustard-seed of allusion spread into a many-branched 'subject'" (2306). Vir HG Wells (1866-1946) het James "an incurable liking" gehad, 'because everything he writes is so alive and kicking'" (2317). As woordsmid het James sy eie skryfwerk as heilig beskou. "Simplicity of heart was combined in him with a brain that Mr Percy Lubbock [1879-1965] has justly called robust, and his tender regard for his friends' feelings was equaled only by the faithfulness with which, on literary questions, he gave them his view of their case when they asked for it - and sometimes when they did not. On all subjects but that of letters his sincerity was tempered by an almost exaggerated tenderness; but when le metier [die professie, skrywerskap] was in question no gentler emotion prevailed" (2327). "To fib about the art one practises is incredibly painful, and James's over-scrupulous conscience, and passionate reverence for letters, while always inclining him to mercy, made deception doubly impossible" (2356).
James kon kritiek op of 'n gespot met sy werk glad nie verdra nie. Dit "wounded his morbidly delicate sensibility" (2434). "This sensitiveness to criticism or comment of any sort had nothing to do with vanity, it was caused by the great artist's deep consciousness of his powers, combined with a bitter, a life-long disappointment at his lack of popular recognition" (2452). "The sense of protracted failure made him miserably alive to the least hint of criticism" (2456). Wanneer ander skrywers se werk gekritiseer word, kon hy dit geniet. Byvoorbeeld, in 'n literêre tydskrif is gesê 'n sekere skrywer "has almost a streak of genius." Hierdie frase "caused [James] amusement for months afterward" (2364).
"Summer afternoon" was vir James "the two most beautiful words in the English language" (3163). Wanneer James 'n gedig voorgelees het in sy "rich and flexible voice ... he chanted it" (2371). Wharton kontrasteer dit met "the present day fashion ... to chatter high verse as though it were colloquial prose" (2378). [Hierdie verandering in voordrag kan moontlik saamhang met die hedendaagse gewildheid van die vrye vers. As na plaatopnames van ouer Afrikaanse digters geluister word, val dit op dat hulle geneig was om hulle gedigte met 'n singerige stemtoon voor te dra.] James "read from his soul, and no one who never heard him read poetry knows what that soul was" (2382). Oor 'n ander gedig wat James voorgelees het, skryf Wharton: "His voice filled the hushed room like an organ adagio" (2386).
Wharton sluit haar outobiografie soos volg af: "In our individual lives, though the years are sad, the days have a way of being jubilant. Life is the saddest thing there is, next to death; yet there are always new countries to see, new books to read ... a thousand little daily wonders to marvel at and rejoice in ... The visible world is a daily miracle for those who have eyes and ears; and I still warm my hands thankfully at the old fire, though every year it is fed with the dry wood of more old memories" (4695).
Johannes Comestor
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