The Master
Colm Toibin
Picador, 2005http://www.colmtoibin.com/
Hit in the Head with a Roundtable
Critical Mick: Thank you for visiting Critical Mick "Reviews free of rules" at mickhalpin.com-. and now at criticalmick.com as well- where can always be found Irish & crime fiction and fun! Up for bashing today is esteemed Irish novelist Colm Toibin's Booker-prize nominated portrait of Henry James, The Master. But this isn't just another unruly review. You've stumbled upon the first-ever Critical Mick roundtable where Toibin's 2004 novel will be worked over by a carefully selected literary panel. As we down a few jars, also in the podcaster tradition.
Wally Mammoth: There'd better be some free booze if we've gotta listen to this mug.
CM: Ha, ha! He's a comic actor, he's a star. Known to family television viewers by their million across America, my first guest is Wally Mammoth.
WM: My old show's theme music's not covered by your creative comments licence. I hope to God you're paying royalties on it, Mick. I ain't half-joking.
CM: Yes, you'll be pleased to note it's the first time in this year-old site's history that we've featured opening music! The theme from My Kind of Mammoth rolled in your honor, Wally. And on my left-
H. H. Bullimore: Just a humble poet here, I don't come with my own theme music I'm afraid.
CM: No theme music and no introduction necessary- South Dublin's esteemed author, poet, and authority on all things literary, H.H. Bullimore.
HHB: Posh! I doubt most sorely that a single listener is familiar with my odd jots.
CM: You're too modest.
HHB: You're too kind.
WM: You're two freakin' lovebirds. Stop cooing at each other and get a move on.
CM: Right so! We've taken these corner seats in the lobby of the Spa Hotel, as featured in Roddy Doyle's A Star Called Henry. What a great book that was! So tell me, Mr. Bullimore. Toibin's The Master. Also a great book?
HHB: Doubtless an intelligent book, Mick. Henry James was a fascinating mind. One has only to absorb The Golden Bowl, The Wings of the Dove, Daisy Miller, The Ambassadors- the list, and the psychological depths, bloom on. The Master explores the awareness, reserve and discipline of the man in intimate detail. For combining the authority of Edel's James biography with the explorative power offered by a novel, The Master won the Los Angeles Times book award for 2004.
CM: Really! I had never thought about the book that way until you mentioned. My experience with Henry James was limited to a couple readings of The Turn of the Screw and either The American or The Europeans, I can't remember which.
HHB: One dealt with contrasting the emerging American psyche against the culture and conventions of late Edwardian Europe. The other speculated on the effect of European refinement on the American experience.
CM: Sorry. I read it years ago on a park bench, not long after moving to Ireland. I remember more vividly how beautiful Dun Laoghaire was on a beautiful sunny day, that first time I'd really spent an afternoon down by the water.
HHB: Henry James was, like yourself, an expatriate. Did you feel a connection to his outsider's view, and the freedom from convention that his position offered? James leveraged his origin to make keen surveys of the English and Continental upper classes that have remained definitive across the intervening decades of turmoil and revolt. This question is open to yourself as well, Mr. Mammoth.
WM: Hey, I ain't no ex-nothing. So I'm trying my acting hand over here on this scene, so what? This mammoth's one hundred percent patriotic American whether you like it or not.
HHB: Quite, quite, so I gathered.
CM: Hey hey! Drinks just in the nick of time. Bushmills for you, sir. And, Wally- you're taking to the Smithwicks anyway. That's one good thing you've discovered so far during your stay in Ireland.
WM: I've been down to that Dun Laoghaire. Nice joint. This pub called Weirs, I got tanked on this Smithwicks ale there! Nice chowder too.
CM: The Master follows Henry James on tours of London, Paris, Rome, Venice, New England, loads of places. Early on, Henry James made a visit to Ireland. The Dublin of the 1890's was described in depth. He- or the character of James created by Toibin, anyway- gave a favourable impression of Kingstown, as Dun Laoghaire was called in that day.
WM: Yeah, I'm getting there! What, you thought I was just mentioning Dun Laoghaire just to plug that Rose Doyle book? Shove that action up your trunk, buddy, no! When I'd stuffed all four stomachs I stumbled out of Weirs, right into these bookstores next door. The first one was this Christian bookstore. My ass got thrown out of there. The second-hand bookstore right next to it, though, it had this Dutch chick wearing a pentagram running it! That's what I remember anyway, she saw me get kicked out by Jesus and welcomed me right in. I sold her that Shadows May Fall and The Broken Cedar and this book about vaudeville guys that go to Niagara Falls and Hollywood. She gave me this The Master book anyway, that's what I'm trying to tell you!
CM: You remember the part where James passes through Kingstown, right?
WM: Yeah! He thought the rest of Ireland was a real dump, a real shithole! And I tell you-
CM: OK, we're back. We're outside the Spa Hotel. I don't think I'll be holding any more interviews there. Here comes our taxi, we're off for The Treehouse where I promise you, guys, we'll get a few relaxing pints into us and continue our conversation about Colm Toibin's The Master.
CM: Welcome back! Gentlemen- (glasses clinking, a sound byte worthy of NPR production.). So, apologies for the interruption. Wally- you were about to give us your impressions of Toibin's fifth novel. Calmly.
WM: It sucked.
CM: A man no afraid to voice a strong opinion! I salute your attitude. Would you like to be more specific?
WM: It sucked like my trunk. And that shnoz is five feet long.
HHB: Why don't you share your estimation of Toibin's The Master, Mick? I have grown curious to plumb your powers of analysis.
WM: Stephanie Plum! Now that minx is more like it.
CM: My powers of analysis, huh?
HHB: Quite. I cannot help but note that your review of talented young MacKenna's 1995 A Year of our Lives remains unposted, months after the collection's short stories should be well digested.
CM: I'm kinda scared by that one, to be dead honest with you all. In my interview, John MacKenna expressed his frustration with critics who come across more interested in their own pyrotechnics than in providing fair analysis of the work in question. I have to agree with him that it's the book itself that deserves all attention and focus, not some posh feller trying to equal Wilde's wit. But pyrotechnics is often the reaction that a book will spark off in me, no offence intended to the authors and artists who've just devoted a year of their lives to—
WM: Yeah, yeah. Save it for the subways. If we're talking pyrotechnics, man! I've been kicked out of a lot of joints before. That stuck-up prick of a manager back there at the Spa, though-! Ha, ha! Bargirl! Yo! Curley, I'm talking to you!
HHB: A small one, if you please.
WM: Scratch that, sweetheart- I'm a mammoth, I don't care if the professor there usually has a small one. Bring him the biggest whiskey you got.
CM: Pint of the black stuff for me. No, make it two. Shit! There's very little of The Master in this roundtable, is there Mr. Bullimore?
HHB: Literature should be an exploration. If it does not lead to experiences that surprise and change you, it has failed.
CM: Let's keep exploring then! So, did The Master move you? In out first segment you provided a fine analysis of everything but the plot—
WM: What plot? I didn't see any plot in there, and with all the detective books I read I'm a mammoth damn good at finding one. This Master guy was all just a bunch of boring visits with this uptight bitch or that stuck-up ho. Five years of it! Hell, I had enough decades of that action in the Big Apple. I don't need dead Countesses too.
CM: It's not just the fact that he's putting a pint in each of my hands, Mr. Bullimore. I actually do agree with Wally. Novels without straightforward plots do not bother me if there's a progression in the character. A Fool's Alphabet by Sebastian Faulks, perfect example.
WM: Critical Mick liking A Fool's Alphabet, there's a big freakin' surprise.
CM: --- no change in the character of James throughout the course of The Master. There were incidents that revealed greater and greater depths, but his position, actions and reactions never changed. OK, he starts off fancying some Joukowsky dude at the beginning and doesn't act on it. Then after great loneliness and regret his hostess in Dublin provides him with an accommodating manservant. Nothing. Then there's more angst, more longing, more death snuffing out potential loves. James then meets this young fellow ex-pat artist in Rome who keeps sculpting giant male torsos and asses, right where the climax of the novel should be. So will Henry or won't he? Um, no. No change. James' character is static, disappointing.
HHB: Perhaps Toibin has crafted a character-based novel that does not rely upon the conventions in which you feel secure. Can not your "free from rules" maxim apply to the writing of others, too? Is Toibin's structure not valid when viewed in such light?
CM: Perhaps to those readers who have an intimate knowledge of James' books and deep understanding of the man before they even begin. Anyone who just meets the Henry James as a character in The Master is bound to be left cold.
HHB: "Cold" a descriptor you apply upon the novel's completion! Perhaps, young critic, you have absorbed more than you currently credit. What other emotions have you been guided through, what landscape so aptly portrayed?
CM: Lemme put it this way: I was surprised when, googling after I'd finished the book, I found a portrait of Henry James. The presidential-looking photo bore no resemblance to the dude I'd been imagining for eleven long chapters.
HHB: (pub noises less refined than the clinking glasses heard earlier.) Prithee, continue.
CM: Do you remember that self-important, dense, twit of a movie producer in Gosford Park? You know, the American homosexual full of secrets and ulterior motives who is the guest of all the upper crusty British main characters?
WM: Bob Balaban. He came up with the idea for that flick too, tha lucky bastard. Yo, barmaid! Hey, I gotta die of thirst to get a refill in here?!
CM: Huh! I knew Julian Fellows won an Oscar for it- well deserved, too. Anyway, that scrawny dude is the one I'd cast for the role of James, Mr. Bullimore. Not the most interesting of Gosford Park's cast. Certainly not the one with which it would be appealing to spend 400 pages.
HHB: You seem to have provided the evidential detail that your countryman declined to elaborate.
CM: Oh, no, Mr. Bullimore! I'm glad I read The Master. It just made Henry James out to be a character that is hard to admire or identify with. Therefore hard to walk along side into that deeply emotional territory of loss and longing that you found so well written.
WM: Drinks here! Two for me. Two for you. Two for you. Bill for you.
HHB: Charmed.
WM: Cough up, Bully boy! You should have made a move to pick up a tab yonks ago. You did that, I wouldn't have to be letting out no ugly truth about you on Mick's freakin' tape thingee.
HHB: My ugly truths hold no fear. I acknowledge them, an act of brutal honesty necessary for a literary artist. Perhaps acting places… lesser demands…
CM: Hey hey! Round table! Man, have you ever seen a pub like this one before! When I mentioned The Treehouse you probably thought it was no more an actual treehouse than The Submarine is an actual submarine…
WM: Cut it out, Bully.
CM: …or the Turk's Head is an actual Turk's head. But, hey! This place, we are literally up a tree.
WM: I said, knock it off! Your plays, condescension and dirty looks I don't give two shits about. But you chuck another olive pit at my tusk and you'll be pecking out poems with your broken beak.
HHB: If it is a denial that you wish at this juncture, skim the pages of The Master on the table before us. If I were so unmannerly to be throwing olive stones at you, quite gladly would I claim my juvenile credit.
CM: Gents, let's not get barred from this place too—
HHB: Ach! I too have been struck! Cerignola, I believe.
WM: It's those beatniks at the next table! Hey! You chumps want a piece of this? Who the hell you think you are?
CM: Yikes! They're critics. See the way they're all in black turtlenecks? They're critics that conform to critical convention. They don't like me much.
WM: Kinda the way that Angel ain't winning any popularity awards with the other vampires?
CM: Yeah.
Black-clad bearded book critic type: Oh, moi apologies "Critical Mick." Are we interrupting another one of your groundbreaking reviews?
CM: Stay here, gents. We're all adults, I'm sure a quiet word will sort everything.
WM: Yo, barmaid! Blondie! Sweetcakes!
HHB: We seem to be having as much difficulty with good service as Henry James had in The Master.
WM: You mean that mammoth-sized part of the book where the self-centered chump did nothing but complain about his butler and maid?
HHB: Quite so. It is considered to be the novel's humorous highlight.
WM: I'll be frank with you, Bully. That just pissed me off the same freakin' way those pit-chuckin' critics at the next table are jumping in golf shoes on my last nerve. If James wasn't happy, he shoulda just said something! Or started some Grade-A stomping.
HHB: And you, sir, have never had to bear the silent strain of being forced to act one way, clear against your nature? Did you not churn in tortured turmoil?
WM: That I know! I'm telling you. Six years! Family entertainment my ten-foot wide ass. Then fans constantly come up and put their drippy noses in my face, expecting me to be that same wet noodle offa TV in real life! I tells ya, Bully. Being all nicey-nicey doesn't get you far. Just look at Mick getting pushed around there.
HHB: Quite, quite. (Sound of: angry pub confrontation)
WM: He's a nice guy. Freakin' idiot but a nice guy. I really doubt his roundtable thing is the big break into Irish show biz he built it up to be, but I don't like seeing those pasty-faced book pussies cut him to shreds.
HHB: Shall we turn the screws on yonder foes?
WM: You mean bust heads?
HHB: Indeed! Tally ho!
WM: Yeah! Tally freakin' ho!
(Mayhem)
CM: Yikes! If any listeners were enthralled by the idea of a cross between the Swiss Family Robinson house and an Irish pub, and made vacation plans accordingly- forget it! Man, The Treehouse is trashed!
WM: Down to the ground! (triumphant trumpet) Now that was some stomping!
HHB: Indeed! This field of battle has seen the venting of frustrations aplenty for Henry James himself and a contemporary Irish literary roundtable. Flee, vanquished ho's!
CM: Whoo-hoo! Yeah!
CM: So, Mr. Mammoth, Mr. Bullimore. In conclusion: your thoughts on Colm Toibin's The Master-?
WM: Getting in the face of whatever jumped-up punk is pissing on your patch and stomping him some manners is more satisfying than bottling everything up.
CM: Words that move me!
WM: And save any cute barmaids in the joint from a five-story fall when stuck-up book critics try to chuck 'em out the window by their curley blonde hair. Chicks dig real guys, the kind who shows a bit of brawn in a punch-up. I ain't half-joking!
Barmaid: Wally (tee hee!), you're my kind of mammoth!
HHB: Indeed! Tally ho, sturdy pachyderm!
CM: Mr. Bullimore- your opinions?
HHB: With its exploration of the back stories that inspired the great novels of Henry James' mid to later period, Toibin's The Master is an acute study of modern literature's chief influence. Yet from the portrait of era, society and setting to the main character's introduction while awaiting the verdict of a failed play to the stygian pits of doomed romance, this novel is ultimately a less accessible Finding Neverland. Make of that what you will. As with all literature, explore and let form your own opinion!
CM: Excellent advice! I thank you both for taking part in Critical Mick's first-ever round table. It has been informative and a pleasure. But now the Guards are coming. Run!
Critical Mick put characters up a tree and threw stones at them. Colm Toibin took a different approach.
|
