Melmoth the Wanderer

Why I created this thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/115964#2939435 (just substitute Melmoth the Wanderer for The Castle of Otranto).

I finished reading this within the past fortnight and have been trying to put my thoughts down on paper. It has many, many layers and I find it cannot be separated from Maturin's life and his personal circumstances, not to mention the historical context, both on a European and Irish level.

I look forward to the discussion.

To my shame, my project of reading all of the 'key works' listed in Punter & Byron's The Gothic (in chronological order - I'm a bit OCD about these things) has been halted for something like four years by my inability to force myself through The Monk. I think I've tried and failed three times. I'm probably tempting fate writing this, but I am DEFINITELY reading The Monk as my 2019 New Year's Resolution. I might even take it with me over the holidays if I can find the damn thing. I'm trying (probably 'again') to shame myself into reading it by writing this post.

Then it's Frankenstein - an old favourite I know I can get through, and then I'll finally get to 'Melmoth'.

>7 frahealee:

It's part and parcel of Gothic literature, I think. The physiological effects it has on the reader through empathy with the suffering of the characters, and the suspense maintained over hundreds of pages.

>7 frahealee: & >8 housefulofpaper:
Maturin did go on a bit when making point. When he had gotten a point over he tended to give a few more cycles of philosophy to make sure you got his point. The nesting of one story within another story within another story takes a bit of tracking. I took notes to keep aware of where I was.

I suspect he may have intended it for serial release which would explain the continuing nature of his point making.

My awareness of the political and sectarian context of the book’s writing, and of Maturin’s personal circumstances obviously added to the reading experience for me.

>13 frahealee: Well done. You have earned indulgences that will save you a thousand years in Purgatory.

>15 frahealee: During the WWII blitz in Belfast my parents and an aunt took shelter under the stairs in their house. My aunt had a lemonade bottle (about a pint and a half capacity) of holy water. They stayed under the stairs all night saying the rosary and listening to the bombs landing around them. Every time a bomb exploded my aunt would shower them all with holy water. My father said that when the all clear sounded they emerged from under the stairs soaking wet from the holy water.

A neigbhours house was hit that night and the family of fourteen died. A nearby bombshelter took a direct hit and over one hundred died there.

>17 frahealee:

but I still mix up the GB vs UK vs England thing.

For those not living in the small islands off the west coast of Europe the whole GB, UK, England thing is quite confusing. Even for some people living here it is quite confusing. For your information I shall try to explain the differences.

"Britain" is the island containing the three separate countries, England, Scotland and Wales. When you include the islands around the coast of Britain, it is called Great Britain. I believe the origin of this was the term Greater Britain to mean Britain plus the islands, in the same way that London refers to a central part of the city and Greater London refers to the central part plus all the surrounding areas that are now generally included in the term London.

"Ireland" is the last island to the west of Britain and before you hit North America.

Ireland has 32 counties which are grouped into four provinces. The provinces are, Ulster, Connaught, Munster and Leinster. Ulster has nine counties, Antrim, Down, Armagh, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Derry, Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal. After the partition of Ireland, six of the Ulster counties become what is known as Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland is included within the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is a shortened name for The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Before partition the British ruled the whole of Ireland and the full title of the UK at that time was The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

After partition the remaining 26 counties of Ireland became the Irish Free State which had a separate parliament but was still a Dominion of the British empire. The country was officially declared a Republic in 1949 but had effectively been one since 1937 when its constitution was created. During the 1916 Rising the Republic had been declared but it took a while to have it finalised. This period included The War of Independence (that started 100 years ago yesterday) and The Irish Civil War. The country is often referred to as The Republic of Ireland but its official name is Ireland, or in Irish, Éire.

Have you ever read a thread backwards because you read the first post, skim, and then wonder how the heck a turned into f and then go back post by post to find out why?

I'm exploring more Gothic Lit, or trying to, but I'm wondering how much of my fondness is actually from Gothic literature and how much is more Gothic's relation to Weird?

I'm looking for come stories to read since I know "all" or even "all of part x" is never going to happen. It sounds Melmoth here might not be the sort of thing I like to read. Nasty, unsympathetic characters are not people I generally like to read about, such that I'll toss even a good read if there's a character I can't stand.

Does this story take place in a specific war or is it something of a long tale? "the wander" makes me think that this character spends a lot of time travelling, which could be physical or temporal. What I've read here concerns me a little as far as would I enjoy the book, but hearing things about GB, Ireland, and such tend to catch my interest given that's a sizable chunk of my ancestry.

Just as a grace note to what pgmcc said, don't assume that all the islands are included in the United Kingdom. The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are parts of the Queen's dominions but are not parts of the United Kingdom. The Queen rules them directly and makes law for them by Order in Council rather than through the Parliament at Westminster. I once had the unusual experience of drafting an Order in Council for Guernsey.

>20 haydninvienna: My "uncle" (of sorts, long story) encouraged me to speak to an Irish friend of his before I went so I could get a run down on places to see and such, and general knowledge. Turned out she was Irish but her husband was Manx (if I have that right). The conversation turned to the Isle of Man, and other little islands in the area. Can't remember much though, except that it seemed to make official things difficult for him from time to time.

>22 frahealee: I see. That's interesting. I'll still need to make a list to see what to keep on top of. I keep encountering so much reading options and lose a few every time I bump into new ones. Woops.

I belatedly (very belatedly—this is my latest read in the Punter and Byron The Gothic’s ‘key texts’) started reading this last night. I’ve read the introduction (Oxford World’s Classics edition) and the first chapter, which is a dark and rather miserable one, and which deals with the death of John Melmoth’s miser uncle.

This was obviously going to be a dark and hefty read, and I was probably going to be at it for some time, so I decided to read it alongside something I thought would be light and humorous, and preferably just as hefty. I chose The Pickwick Papers. I’ve read the first two chapters of that.

Here’s a paradox: so far this strikes me as funnier than The Pickwick Papers. This chapter was loaded with dark humour. I really don’t know what that promises. I look forward to finding out.

>25 alaudacorax:

Oh dear ... I'm well aware that the humour largely depended on a hefty dose of prejudice about the Catholic Irish as opposed to the Protestant Ascendancy—I suppose I should say that. Even if I couldn't see that for myself, the introduction would have left me in no doubt. Er ... I think I'll stop there ...

>26 alaudacorax:

... no I won't ...

Thinking it over, there is more to the humour than just prejudice about the Catholic Irish and I'm thinking my use in >26 alaudacorax: of 'largely' was inaccurate or close to it.

We live in politically correct times and warnings and apologies have become so prevalent that they've almost become a knee-jerk reaction when I'm writing something myself.

>27 alaudacorax:

Completely off-topic, no doubt, but I saw a warning before a British television programme recently that it contained reference to possibly offensive language having previously been used.

>27 alaudacorax:
I am glad you did not stop reading Melmoth The Wanderer. Having been brought up as an Irish Catholic I do not find Maturin's book particularly prejudiced against Irish Catholics as opposed to prejudiced against Catholicism in general. Maturin was writing the book approximately twenty years after the 1798 rising and Catholic emancipation was very much in discussion at the time. His primary audience would have been the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland and he would have kept an eye on what his Church of Ireland superiors thought of his work. A degree of prejudice against Catholicism would have been expected.

I categorise Melmoth with Matthew Lewis's The Monk in that it is part of the Black Spain movement in the Gothic. One hypothesis is that Lewis used Spain as the proxy for Catholic France which was at odds with Protestant England at the time. I think Maturin was using that trope in his story.

Melmoth does require a little endurance but it is well worth the effort.

I'd agree that Melmoth requires some endurance. I read it in a way that removed distractions, analogous to an early morning commute. Also like a commute, I had limited time, so I took it in many shortish chunks over at least a couple of months.

The chapters of The Cambridge History of the Gothic (volume 1) that deal with the emergence of the Gothic genre in the 19th century contains material pointing out the strains of anti-Catholicism that fed into it (and the socio-policitical reasons for it).

There's a volume in the Palgrave Gothic series entitled Spanish Gothic. I haven't read it yet, but it includes discussions of both The Monk and Melmoth the Wanderer. How I came to possess the book, is that I somehow got wind (via Twitter - in the Good Old Days) that Palgrave's academic titles were briefly on sale online for 10% of their listed prices!

>30 housefulofpaper:
Spanish Gothic sounds interesting but at the current price of €93 it will remain only a book of interest to me. A sale at 10% of the RRT would certainly be of interest for many such academic titles.

I think, I never finished reading Malmoth the Wanderer because it gave me the creeps. I started reading it being pregnant and feared something of "Rosemary's Baby" or such. But the book has a mighty prose, and some day I want to read it through. As a child seeing the old b&w Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde frightened me almost to death, but since then I read it twice and love it as all I read of Robert Louis Stevenson.

>32 Buchmerkur:

I've got too many books on the go—Melmoth is taking me way too long.

Are you talking about the Spencer Tracy film or the Fredric March one? I don't think I've seen the latter—or was particularly aware of it, but I've just spotted that it has really high critics' ratings on Rotten Tomatoes—91% to the Spencer Tracy's 60%. I'll have to look out for that one. Oo ... and they list a 1920, John Barrymore, silent version as 92%—another one to look out for ...

>29 pgmcc: I completely agree, Melmoth the Wanderer is also worth a re-read. Now that I've ready it once, I'm going to read it again, more slowly this time, and might take notes like I did while re-reading the Frankenstein, 1818 text.

And I also admit that it's actually ok to read a written synapse (Wikipedia has half decent one) , as it's easy to get lost in/while reading Melmoth the Wanderer. It doesn't lend itself to an easy read. Besides not understanding much of the historical and religious background/history (Intertextuality course would be great for this book), I found the story narration to be confounding during my first read of it. But after getting sorted, would deeply enjoy it.

I'm still waiting for the great cinematic film version of Melmoth the Wanderer , too. I think I mentioned in another thread that my choice for the main character, Melmoth, would be Cillian Murphy.

>33 alaudacorax: The film with King Baggot as Jekyll/ Hyde of 1930 fits best with my memories. I was quite young then end of the 1960s and mainly remember a nightly scene with a kissing couple in a doorway and Hyde suddenly popping up with his poker stick, starting to beat them violently. uuugh!