Gertrude AthertonResenhas

I read this book, originally published in 1898, and designed it for a book design book in grad school. It's rather dark--the protagonist is biracial, and her father is abusive. I'm pretty sure the author was white, and the father is a stereotypical Mexican man, so... problematic. But it had some other elements I liked, such as the protagonist and setting and atmospheric, gothic elements.

Two men talk about life and death, especially about the loneliness of death and what happens to the soul. It appears that one of the friends has perished in a bog known as The Strid. Weigall cannot believe it, goes to the Strid, and sees a hand raised above the bog. The hand grasps the stick that Weigall has extended, but when Weigall pulls him, well, that is the crux of the story. Brief and to the point, this well-written ghost story lacks nothing, except perhaps an explanation as to how it could possibly have happened.

The last published work by Atherton, it is a meandering collection of reminiscences and gossip about San Francisco by an opinionated, bigoted woman in her late eighties. The value of a memoir by "someone who was there" is diminished by not knowing how much is true.

"The finest stories ever written about early California" (Phil Townsend Hanna) First edition thus, being a revised and enlarged edition of "Before the Gringo Came," of with two new stories . "Gertrude Atherton, who also wrote under the names Asmodeus and Frank Lin, produced thirty-four novels, seven short fiction collections, six history-based books and essays, and many newspaper and magazine articles on feminism, politics, war, and other contemporary issues. By fictionally portraying the "new woman" at the threshold of the twentieth century, she highlighted the psychological problems facing women in changing societies in both America and Europe. Atherton's work concerns subjects similar to those of authors such as Mary Wilkins Freeman, Edith Wharton, Ellen Glasgow, and Willa Cather, although her work is richer in variety of theme and background" (Elaine Oswald for ANB). Zamorano 80 #1

This is the third collection of these 19th and early 20th century ghost stories I have read, always over a Christmas period, though again some of these are not ghost stories, but other types of mysteries. There was a greater number of longer stories here, and a fair few quite mediocre ones, though the quality of the stories seemed to improve towards the end. Favourites were the following (the Atherton and Bangs stories were more humorous): The Dead and the Countess (Gertrude Atherton), The Cedar Closet (Lafcadio Hearn), The Spectre Cook of Bangletop (John Kendrick Bangs), The Haunting of White Gates (G M Robins), The Shadow in the Corner (Mary Elizabeth Braddon) and The Upper Berth (F Marion Crawford). Other very good ones that just didn't quite hit the same high spot for me were: The Shadow on the Blind (Mrs Alfred (Louisa) Baldwin), No 5 Branch Line: The Engineer (Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards) and The Secret Chamber (Margaret Oliphant).

Another interesting inclusion was Arthur Machen's The Bowmen, in which ghostly bowmen from Agincourt help English Tommies in the First World War trenches by defeating a much larger German force. This story was taken by many at the time of its publication in 1914 to be true reporting of what soldiers had said, and probably helped to fuel the "Angel of Mons" legend of that year.

There is little reason to read this novel unless you are undertaking a project like mine or want to read up on early feminist utopias. Atherton’s tone is pleasant enough. The novel is short. But it is not very memorable for the most part. It undertakes of several prejudices about “Prussianism”.

A contemporary reviewer, one Carroll K. Michener, reviewed the novel for the April 6, 1918 issue of The Bellman. Winding up for a plot synopsis, he recognized it had some kinship with science fiction: “It is unseemly , moreover, to laugh down even the most fanciful panacea for the present overmastering ills of the world; to do so would be to deny the firm triumphs of the many prophetic Jules Vernes of the world of fiction.”

I’m always willing to let others do the tedious plot synopsis – especially since it’s been a few months since I read the novel, and my notes aren’t that extensive, so here’s more of Mr. Michener:

“The overwhelming key-thought of the book, as might be expected, is feminism. While it pleases President Wilson to find distinction between the German people and the German government, the author marks her cleavage in another direction: she sets up the proposition that Prussianism is embodied in German masculinity, and that the hope of democratic peace and Germany’s salvation lies in the hands of its women.

"The book opens with what promises to be a valuable addition to the war literature designed to depict the German character. Its value for the reader has a priori attestation from the knowledge that Gertrude Atherton had more or less seven years of more or less continuous residence in Germany. The suppressed individuality of German womanhood and the blustering dominance of junker masculinity are given a forceful portrayal.

"The central figure is Countess Gisela Niebuhr, who has sworn with her four sisters never to marry. From this family of feminine rebels she goes forth to various expansive adventures in self-expression, principal among them her life under an assumed name as a governess in a rich American family, and her university life in Munich.

"In America the sentient womanhood of Gisela Döring overshadows for a time her militant feminism. She falls in love with a young German diplomat, the Freiherr Frans von Nettelbeck. The German social system engulfs their romance, and he goes back to Germany to wed a woman of his class and with the requisite dower, the countess being penniless after her father’s death, and maintaining even from her lover the secret of her high birth.

"Returning to Germany, the countess, still in disguise, becomes a famous dramatist, and begins a subtle propaganda for overcoming the masculine overlordship of her countrymen. The war interrupts her programme and submerges it in more absorbing interests. She works heart and soul in Germany’s cause until two American women, encountering her in Switzerland on furlough from her Red Cross work, convince her that Germany is wrong and its cause lost. This is a naïve procedure, as is so much else in the book. The countess goes back to Germany resolved to rouse the women. This marvel is accomplished in the course of a few pages of writer’s magic, and “the white morning” finds the whole of Germany’s gigantic military machine inexorably in the grip of Germany’s unified, armed, embattled, uniformed millions of women; every munition factory and storehouse destroyed; the police and home guards murdered; the Kaiser a helpless prisoner in his palace: all this in a twinkling. (Ha! villain! Give me the papers!) After that how simple to proclaim a republic!

"No less imaginative strain is inflicted upon the reader in another is inflicted upon the reader in another element of the climax. The countess, confronted with the difficulty of disposing of Freiherr Frans when he appears unexpectedly on the night before “the white morning” to renew the old dream of love, slays him with her little dagger; not, however, before amply renewing said dream with him. There are reasons for this; reasons that lose their force quickly when the reader has wandered far from the tenuous persuasion of the text."

There are some things to add and subtract from this.

I rather liked the melodrama of Gisela’s final encounter with Freiherr..

I would also add that Atherton forsakes three clichés in her plot.

First, you will note this is not some farcical pacifist feminist revolution accomplished by women denying men sex. Atherton would very probably been aware of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. Modern viewers may be in favor of its notion of no peace, no sex. But contemporary Greeks would have regarded any man that allowed that trick to work as a pathetic loser.

Second, Atherton’s is free of certain modern clichés. There is no one radio station, no one government building, no one computer center, or no one Death Star that needs to taken over or destroyed to bring on the revolution. Gisela has to show a great deal of executive ability to plan the simultaneous take over of many parts of the German state. Gisela’s female recruits are not the detestable warrior babes of modern film and fiction. Yes, they are armed. Yes, they kill, but it is entirely plausible in the quite well documented context of disparities between male and female physical abilities.

Originally, I thought Atherton’s depiction of the lives of German women as over the top. However, after learning, in her afterword “An Argument for my ‘The White Morning’”, she lived in Germany and knew these sorts of German women, I will give her the benefit of a doubt.

"I'll never break my husband's heart and the vows I made at the altar.", 27 January 2015

This review is from: Sleeping Fires (Hardcover)
Written in the 1920s but set in 1860s San Francisco 'Society', the novel opens with the city ladies waiting to meet and appraise the new bride of 'the most popular and fashionable' local doctor. Madeline is a lovely and intelligent girl, but sadly Dr Talbot doesn't appreciate it: 'For her mind he appeared to have a good natured masculine contempt. He talked to her as he would to a fascinating little girl.' Indeed, he actively disapproves of her reading and becoming a 'bluestocking', naively preferring her to go for country walks with writer Langdon Masters. Meanwhile the ladies look on for any hint of scandal...
(spoiler alert) So far so good...But the latter part of the novel became, to my mind, just too ridiculous for words. With Dr Talbot cottoning on to the burgeoning love between them, Masters is banished to New York, where he ends up in the gutter, living in a sordid area with a succession of low women. Madeline, meanwhile, for all she won't consider divorce, resolves to drink herself to death too. I'm afraid I had no sympathy with her, nor was I particularly convinced by her as a character.
Very weak read.
Downloaded free from Project Gutenberg.½

I saw this and picked it up on a whim, but I am glad that I did. It was chilling! Music that sets just the right creepy note, a short haunting poem (the best kind, I think), and then a very masterfully performed gothic short story.

The story was quite interesting to me, and I found myself wishing that there was more. I was quite surprised to learn that E. Nesbit wrote this story, because I'd always thought of her as a children's writer. A little dark for all that, perhaps, but still -- children's stories. This was most definitely not a children's story and now I am wondering if she wrote more of this kind of thing. If so, I absolutely want to read it.

What this lacks in length, it more than makes up for in content. The audio, including the poem, comes in at just under half an hour. But during that time, the story introduces us to three characters and their histories, through to the present, and then through the tragic. One of their number dies, and quickly, and then the odd stuff starts happening. I won't ruin it for anyone, but it definitely makes me think about how tethered we are or can be, and who really holds the end of that line, or who CAN hold it. Very interesting.

If you can find this one, I recommend it. If you know of any other E. Nesbit works like this one, send 'em my way!

As predictable as the novel actually is, I actually enjoyed it because I was not entirely sure how it was going to end. And I must say, the ending took me by surprise as much as "A Rose for Emily" did when I read that short story for the first time. If nothing else, this book should be read just for the ending. Besides that, this novel is chock-full of irony, and that's always fun to look back on after getting over the initial shock of the ending.½

I'm a bit surprised at how unfulfilling the shorts seem to me. The first two, The Bell in the Fog and The Striding Place, start off very promising, a nice set up, story coming along nicely, tension builds (not tremendously, but it does one way or the other). And just when things start to get interesting, the story is finished. In most cases the protagonists take their own lives or the other characters are dead.
The first one I liked was the The Dead and The Countess. Talking dead people always do the trick and it had a light-footedness about it which lacked in some other shorts.
I suppose Gertrude's stories are just not supernatural or horrific enough for me. I believe I prefer serious gothic horror novels over the years where blood and goo oozes from the pages.
But to be fair she does paint a good atmosphere and focusses more on the psychology and internal struggles of her characters.
And good job on the sentences. With little words she can do so much.

I really enjoyed this book's honest portrayal of its heroine, Lee. Its very easy to become absorbed into her life and feel her personality. Other characters are similarly well written and you won't find yourself wishing to know more.

Toward the end, it takes you on a bit of a rollercoaster as you feel like your leaning one way but it dramatically takes you in another. Its a bitter-sweet story and I'll probably read it several more times. The only thing lacking is a sequel - I would love to learn more about dear Lee and her family.

Rather disappointing. For a start half of the stories are not ghostly ones at all. Of the remainder only 'The Striding Place' and 'The Dead and the Countess' are ghost stories proper,and another couple could be described as psychological stories. (for want of a better description)
None are of a really high standard.½

best selling fiction book in america in 1923 - was also released as a silent film starring Clara Bow and Corinne Griffith

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