in pale-green snow-storms

I've been reading some stories by Stephen Crane (1871-1900) and struggling with them a bit. He's of the generation of Joseph Conrad (b. 1857) and Rudyard Kipling (b. 1865) and he reminds me of them in some ways, especially Kipling. Not that Kipling ever wrote like this:

Swaggering Pete loomed like a golden sun to Maggie.

In the Bowery, Pete took Maggie 

to see plays in which the dazzling heroine was rescued from the palatial home of her treacherous guardian by the hero with the beautiful sentiments. The latter spent most of his time out at soak in pale-green snow-storms, busy with a nickel-plated revolver rescuing aged strangers from villains. 

   Maggie lost herself in sympathy with the wanderers swooning in snow-storms beneath happy-hued church windows, while a choir within sang 'Joy to the World'. To Maggie and the rest of the audience this was transcendental realism. Joy always within, and they, like the actor, inevitably without. Viewing it, they hugged themselves in ecstatic pity of their imagined or real condition.

   The girl thought that the arrogance and granite-heartedness of the magnate of the play was very accurately drawn. She echoed the maledictions that the occupants of the gallery showered on this individual when his lines compelled him to expose his extreme selfishness.

   Shady persons in the audience revolted from the pictured villainy of the drama. With untiring zeal they hissed vice and applauded virtue. Unmistakably bad men evinced an apparently sincere admiration for virtue. The loud gallery was overwhelmingly with the unfortunate and the oppressed. 

(Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Chapter 8)

Interesting to compare this with Dickens' writing about popular theatre (see end of post).

Crane at any rate wasn't going to be sentimental. These stories -- Maggie, "The Monster", "The Blue Hotel", have pitiable victims but they decline any sympathy or admiration. Maggie has no character to speak of. Henry Johnson, the black hostler who saves the doctor's son from the fire at the price of his face (in The Monster), is reductively ridiculed*. The disturbed Swede in "The Blue Hotel" gives no sympathy to others and the narrator gives none to him; the story focusses mainly on the insincerity and self-interest of those who do try to give him any sympathy. 

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* I found these two essays informative:

Stanley Wertheim, "Unraveling the Humanist: Stephen Crane and Ethnic Minorities" in American Literary Realism Vol 30 No 3 (1998), pp. 65-75.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/27746736.pdf?seq=1

 John Cleman, "Blunders of Virtue: The Problem of Race in Stephen Crane's 'The Monster'" in American Literary Realism Vol 34 No 2 (2002), pp. 119-134.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/27747054?seq=1

When Crane wrote about African Americans he strung together satirical racial stereotypes. The racism was genuine, but I get the impression he toned it up not down. He wanted to affront northern do-gooders, and he had a horror of sentimentality. (His attitudes to the Jews, the Irish and the Mexicans were equally "of his time".)

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Crane's style was a problem for me, too. There's an archness about his successes. A lumbering, in Maggie, in the narrator's flowery prose that deliberately contrasts with the language of the protagonists (refusing sympathy with them). The section I've quoted has several instances of fluffed effects, but you can't detach them from the insights. The description of the melodrama goes on a bit too long after I stopped quoting, too. 

The contrast is also a source of comedy. For instance, of the group of snowballing boys in "His New Mittens", 

They explained vociferously that it was proper for the soldiers always to thrash the Indians. The little boys did not pretend to deny the truth of this argument; they confined themselves to the simple statement that, in that case, they wished to be soldiers. 

The narrator uses the language of the official inquiry, comically different from what must have been said. Perhaps there's a justification for the jocular orotundity, in this earlier sentence: "Being a boy himself, he did not understand boys at all." Perhaps it's only professionals (white, protestant, male) who are capable of understanding these other categories of being. But then this claim and the educated, literary style may also be ironic in the other direction, an assertion of the limitations of the educated classes' high-minded attempts to understand what is so different from them. *

(* This linguistic mismatch was also used by Dickens, for the eight-year-old David Copperfield, narrated by his adult self: "I could not disguise from myself, or from the waiter, that this was an uncomfortable coincidence . . .". or -- re Steerforth -- "I begged him to do me the favour of presiding". There's comedy here, and a stimulus to our imaginations, as we affectionately conceive what David really might have said, and how he might have behaved and what he felt.)

*

And yet, both Maggie and The Monster have the shape of narratives driven by social reform, while at the same time casting satiric doubt on the validity of middle-class do-gooding. 

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Somehow a simple embrace of anti-sentimentality feels just as cheap as the sentimentality it reacts against.

But it can be a bracing switchback. In The Monster Martha Goodwin is introduced (chapter 19) as a wrong-headed domestic tyrant with strong views on political matters (Crane implies that it's ridiculous for her to have any political views at all). At the same time the story acknowledges the basic injustice of her position as domestic help for her married sister. When she defies the conventional judgments of her friends and what "the whole town" thinks about Dr Trescott,  I start to warm to Martha Goodwin. "I'd have knocked that miserable Jake Winter's head off." But does Martha just instinctively enjoy the idea of physical violence, or is she perhaps instinctively contrarian? Either way her social defiance is momentary at best. The women's conversation veers off immediately into gossip about neighbours moving house. That's the sort of thing women are really more interested in, Crane implies. Chapter 22 ends in blank triviality. Is it the women who are being mocked, or the reader? E.g. for thinking that there really is a right and wrong in relation to Dr Trescott's actions, a juicy moral discussion to be had? Crane's story posits the strong possibility that all moral discussion is futile and false, people just behave as they can't help and others react as they can't help. 

I read the 1896 revised edition of Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. The original 1893 version is available here:

https://www.ntu.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/1120371/Maggie-A-Girl-of-the-Streets-eBook.pdf

published by Trent Editions (2000) with a valuable introduction and notes by Christopher Gair.

The girl, Maggie, blossomed in a mud puddle. She grew to be a most rare and wonderful production of a tenement district, a pretty girl.

Yet Maggie is another faceless protagonist, like Henry after the accident. (Crane tends to avoid describing the permanent features of people's faces; just the expressions they perform, and in Maggie's case not even that.)  Chapter 17 describes "a girl of the painted cohorts" on a rainy evening, crossing town and going down to the river, but it's teasingly left open whether this is Maggie or not. Most probably it is, and on the night of her death (announced two chapters later). In the 1896 edition the suggestion is death by suicide, though suicidal purpose doesn't seem too consistent with her still attempting to ply her trade en route. In the 1893 edition there's an additional encounter with a hideous and sinister man who (unlike the others in the chapter) is interested in following, so the suggestion is that Maggie dies by male violence. But the point of the chapter, anyway, is the lack of individuality. This could be any street girl on the Lower East Side. 

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[Stephen Crane's Maggie surely had a great influence on Hubert Selby Jr's Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964). The profane and limited language, creatively rendered. The prolonged street violence and home violence. This chapter made me think of the last few days of TraLaLa.]

The other Crane stories I read were "Twelve O'Clock", "Moonlight on the Snow", "Manacled" and "An Illusion in Red and White". 

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The passage may recall Pierre Bourdieu's generalizations about "class fraction" and how we view the art of other social classes:

Therefore, self-selection into a class fraction is achieved by impelling the child's internalization of preferences for objects and behaviors suitable for him or her as member of a given social class and also, the development of an aversion towards the preferred objects and behaviors of other social classes. In practice, when a man or a woman encounters the culture and the arts of another social class, he or she feels "disgust, provoked by horror, or visceral intolerance (‘feeling sick’) of the tastes of others."

(Wikipedia on Pierre Bourdieu's La distinction : Critique sociale du jugement (1979)).

It's interesting to compare Crane's scene with Dickens' affectionate portrayals of popular theatre. Dickens knew that popular art was highly conventionalized, and that the popular audience could see the absurdities of what it valued, quite as well as a classical opera audience.  

Mr. Vincent Crummles received Nicholas with an inclination of the head, something between the courtesy of a Roman emperor and the nod of a pot companion; and bade the landlord shut the door and begone.

‘There’s a picture,’ said Mr. Crummles, motioning Nicholas not to advance and spoil it. ‘The little ‘un has him; if the big ‘un doesn’t knock under, in three seconds, he’s a dead man. Do that again, boys.’

The two combatants went to work afresh, and chopped away until the swords emitted a shower of sparks: to the great satisfaction of Mr. Crummles, who appeared to consider this a very great point indeed. The engagement commenced with about two hundred chops administered by the short sailor and the tall sailor alternately, without producing any particular result, until the short sailor was chopped down on one knee; but this was nothing to him, for he worked himself about on the one knee with the assistance of his left hand, and fought most desperately until the tall sailor chopped his sword out of his grasp. Now, the inference was, that the short sailor, reduced to this extremity, would give in at once and cry quarter, but, instead of that, he all of a sudden drew a large pistol from his belt and presented it at the face of the tall sailor, who was so overcome at this (not expecting it) that he let the short sailor pick up his sword and begin again. Then, the chopping recommenced, and a variety of fancy chops were administered on both sides; such as chops dealt with the left hand, and under the leg, and over the right shoulder, and over the left; and when the short sailor made a vigorous cut at the tall sailor’s legs, which would have shaved them clean off if it had taken effect, the tall sailor jumped over the short sailor’s sword, wherefore to balance the matter, and make it all fair, the tall sailor administered the same cut, and the short sailor jumped over his sword. After this, there was a good deal of dodging about, and hitching up of the inexpressibles in the absence of braces, and then the short sailor (who was the moral character evidently, for he always had the best of it) made a violent demonstration and closed with the tall sailor, who, after a few unavailing struggles, went down, and expired in great torture as the short sailor put his foot upon his breast, and bored a hole in him through and through.

‘That’ll be a double encore if you take care, boys,’ said Mr. Crummles. ‘You had better get your wind now and change your clothes.’ 

(from Nicholas Nickelby)

lastExitToBrooklyn

[Image source: http://art-nerd.com/newyork/sunset-park/ ]

Harry took a drag of his cigarette, blew the smoke in Wilsons direction, dropped the butt on the floor and squashed it under his shoe. What we do at the union meetings is none of your business unless we want ta tellya about it. O, I know that Harry, I certainly didnt mean to imply otherwise. All I am trying to say is that this organisation, like your union, is like any other organisation in that it is a team and everyone connected with the organisation from the President to the elevator operators are a member of that team and we all have to pull together. Everyones job is equally important. The Presidents job is no more important than yours in that if you dont co-operate, just as he must co-operate, we can not get the job done. That is what I am trying to say. We all have to get behind the wheel, just like in the union. Now, we have a job that must be done and it must be done now. This new man is the only man available to do it at this time. That is the only reason he is doing it. We certainly had no intention of being instrumental in asking anyone to do anything that might even be considered a breach of union rules, but the job has to be done -- look, this guys a new man and aint cuttin no stainless so just stop the shit. If ya put him back on the job I'll call the whole goddamn plant out, Harrys face becoming redder, his eyes glaring, ya get that? I'll stand by that fuckin bench all day if I have ta and if ya try to putim back on that job I swear to krist the whole fuckin plantll be out on the street in two fuckin seconds and you and no ballbreakin fuck in the jointll stop me. Ya getit? If ya want a strike I'll giveya one.   (Hubert Selby Jr., Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964), pp. 98-99)

Even in this quiet-ish extract, we can see that Harry's verbs are characterized by constant effort grading into aggression and threat. To live on the streets of 1950s Brooklyn means, in the minds of the characters, to assert and often to execute violence on others. (The bosses' "shit" is comically different.)

I'm really pleased to have finally read Last Exit to Brooklyn. (I did so, at first, with justified trepidation; it's a ferocious book, not suitable reading for bedtime, or at mealtimes, or while waiting for a phone call.) It connects with a number of other books and authors that are important to me, for instance Zola's L'Assommoir, Frank Norris, and La Vida, Oscar Lewis' 1967 oral history of Puerto Rican and New York poverty. So in short I'm coming at it from the perspective of naturalism rather than modernism, and from my own fleeting contacts with the poor, troubled and disadvantaged. So I've picked quotations in this post to give some idea of the range of Brooklyn registers that Selby finds ways to represent.

VINNIE YELLED AGAIN TA GET THE KID DRESSED SO HE COULD TAKEIM FOR A HAIRCUT AND MARY SAID HE DONT NEED ONE. MEEEEEE, WHAT A FUCKIN JERK. THE KIDS HAIRS DOWN TA HISZASS AND SHE SAYS HE DONT NEED NO HAIRCUT. YEAH. I SAY. I SAY. IT LOOKS NICE. I LIKE IT. HE AINT SUPPOSEDTA LOOK LIKE A GURL. WHO SEZ, EH? WHO SEZ. AND ANYWAY HE DONT LOOK LIKE NO GURL. HE LOOKS CUTE. VINNIE SLAPPED HIS HEAD AND GROANED. MEEEEEE, HE LOOKS CUTE. WHAT KINDA CUTE WITH ALL DOZE CURLS. WHATSAMATTA WITH CURLS, EH? WHATSAMATTA? DIDNT YA BRODDA AUGIES KID HAVE CURLS AND DIDNT ROSIE MAKE IT STAY LONG, EH? EH? SO WHAT THE FUCK YAYELLIN ABOUT? YEAH. YEAH. AND YA SEE HOW CREEPY THE KID IS. LONG HAIR MAKES A KID CREEPY. THATS WHAT IT DOES. GODFABID MY KID GROWS UP LIKE THAT. ID GIVEM A SHOT IN THE HEAD. joey peeked at them from his room. WHO YA GONNA GIVE A SHOT IN THE HEAD, EH? WHO? WHATTAYAMEAN WHO? ILL GIVEYA ONE TOO. YA THINK SO, EH? YEAH. GOAHEAD. GOAHEAD. ILL SPLIT YA FUCKIN SKULL.  (pp. 203-204)

And yes, this scene soon descends into violence. For all that, Vinnie's and Mary's marriage is almost a comedy compared to the dark things that Vinnie engaged in before his marriage. He hasn't consciously changed, he's just older, so the fountainhead of rage, lust and viciousness pumps a bit less furiously. 

But perhaps that doesn't quite say it right. It doesn't express the emptiness of the endless drugs, booze and kicks. Most terrifyingly and pitifully this is portrayed through the self-destruct journey of Tralala, a robber-prostitute burning up with hate and frustration, unable to comprehend love or kindness or any kind of fellowship, driven only by a meaningless belief in being the queen of the street. (And ending as the desecrated body of the novel's most shocking scene.) As with punks like Vinnie, street status is everything to Tralala. This passage is from when her downward trajectory is just beginning to accelerate.

A CPO came up to her and asked her if she wanted a drink and she damn near spit in his face, but just mumbled as she looked at the clock and said shit. Yeah, yeah, lets go. She gulped down her drink and they left. Her mind was still such a fury of screechings (and that sonofabitch gives me nothin but a fuckin letter) that she just lay in bed staring at the ceiling and ignored the sailor as he screwed her and when he finally rolled off for the last time and fell asleep she continued staring and cursing for hours before falling asleep. The next afternoon she demanded that he giver some money and he laughed. She tried to hit him but he grabbed her arm, slapped her across the face and told her she was out of her mind. He laughed and told her to take it easy. He had a few days leave and he had enough money for both of them. They could have a good time. She cursed him and spit and he told her to grab her gear and shove off. She stopped in a cafeteria and went to the ladies room and threw some water on her face and bought a cup of coffee and a bun. She left and went back to the same bar. It was not very crowded being filled mostly with servicemen trying to drink away hangovers, and she sat and sipped a few drinks until the bar started filling. She tried looking for a liveone, but after an hour or so, and a few drinks, she ignored everyone and waited. A couple of sailors asked her if she wanted a drink and she said whatthefuck and left with them. They roamed around for hours drinking and then she went to a room with two of them and they gave her a few bucks in the morning so she stayed with them for a few days, 2 or 3, staying drunk most of the time and going back to the room now and then with them and their friends. (pp. 77-78)

Nor are the hip queers, like Georgette, free from the same desperation, a compulsive but unconscious and never satisfied search for peace. But they are the only people we meet who try to shadow forth a semblance (it's not much more than a semblance) of love, culture, courtesy and civilisation. Their party with the rough trade is so drug-hazed that it's increasingly difficult for us (and Georgette) to keep track of the excessive action, locations, people and drug intake.

She was sleeping so Goldie lit a few candles and told her Sheila was turning a trick so they had to come down here and Im sure you dont mind honey, handing her some bennie, and told Rosie to make coffee. Rosie lit the small kerosene stove in the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. When it was ready she passed out paper cups of coffee then went back to the kitchen and made another pot, continuing to make pot after pot of coffee, coming inbetween to sit at Goldies feet. The guys slowly snapped out of the tea goof and soon the bennie got to their tongues too and everybody yakked. Goldie said she felt ever so much better. I guess I needed a good cry and she passed around the bennie again and they all popped bennie and sipped hot coffee and Goldie sat next to Malfie and asked him if he was enjoying himself, and he said yeah, Im havin a ball; and Goldie just floated along on a soft purple cloud, feeling luxurious and slightly smug: a handsome piece of trade beside her; wonderful girl friends; and a beautiful bennie connection in the corner drugstore where she could get a dozen 10 grain tablets for 50c.   (p. 36)

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Selby's novel doesn't sentimentalize any part of the brutal society he depicts; no gender, ethnic group, or age group (the children in the playground are nightmarish). But I think he's particularly insightful about the destructive harm of his era's macho ideals of manliness. (I wish I could say this was just history.) Perhaps he wrote so well about those wretched beliefs because he knew them, as he must have done, from within, or perhaps I particularly notice that aspect of the novel because I do too. 

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The early chapters of Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) are astonishingly prophetic of Last Exit in their violence, innovative rendering of speech, minimalism and hopelessness.