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An' because it was so, why, o' course 'e went an' died
I'm reading Charles McGrath's "Rudyard Kipling in America" in the most recent issue of The New Yorker and it contains one of those ordinary facts the finding out of which makes you feel like you've been living under a rock:
Kipling wound up in Brattleboro because, in January, 1892, when he was twenty-six and already famous for tales and poems he had published about India, he married a Vermonter named Carrie Balestier. Theirs was such a perplexing union that you wish that Benfey had gone into more detail about it. He doesn't tell you, for example, just how much Kipling's family and most of his friends disliked Carrie. They thought her unattractive and opinionated, not nearly feminine enough. Kipling's father said she was "a good man spoiled." Most Kipling biographers have depicted her as a nag, a harridan, a ball-breaker. So what did Kipling see in her? Mostly, it seems, he saw her brother, who was Kipling's friend and literary agent.
Wolcott Balestier was a darting, quicksilver figure, who probably deserves a book of his own. Arthur Waugh (Evelyn's father), who briefly worked for him, said he had a "chameleon power with people." After dropping out of Cornell, Wolcott travelled to Colorado and to Mexico, looking for adventure, and then edited a lowbrow New York weekly called Tid-Bits, before settling in London, where he became an enterprising and ambitious agent—the Andrew Wylie of his time. Some people thought him vulgar, but most of literary London was charmed; Henry James and Edmund Gosse were especially smitten. Kipling loved Balestier, too, and their friendship, if it wasn't overtly sexual, had erotic overtones. They even wrote together—something Kipling never did with anyone else—collaborating on a novel, "The Naulahka," an adventure story about a priceless Indian necklace.
In December, 1891, Balestier died suddenly, of typhoid, at the age of twenty-nine. Kipling, who was visiting India, where his parents still lived, raced back to London, and scarcely a week after he returned he married Balestier's younger sister, in a dreary little ceremony that was more like a funeral than a wedding. Henry James gave away the bride, though he said later, "It's a union of which I don't forecast the future." Kipling, for their honeymoon, rewrote a love poem that he had intended for her brother, changing the pronouns and addressing her as "Dear Lass," instead of "Dear Lad."
If I'm going to be earwormed with Oh, passin' the love o' women—you, too, sunshine.
Kipling wound up in Brattleboro because, in January, 1892, when he was twenty-six and already famous for tales and poems he had published about India, he married a Vermonter named Carrie Balestier. Theirs was such a perplexing union that you wish that Benfey had gone into more detail about it. He doesn't tell you, for example, just how much Kipling's family and most of his friends disliked Carrie. They thought her unattractive and opinionated, not nearly feminine enough. Kipling's father said she was "a good man spoiled." Most Kipling biographers have depicted her as a nag, a harridan, a ball-breaker. So what did Kipling see in her? Mostly, it seems, he saw her brother, who was Kipling's friend and literary agent.
Wolcott Balestier was a darting, quicksilver figure, who probably deserves a book of his own. Arthur Waugh (Evelyn's father), who briefly worked for him, said he had a "chameleon power with people." After dropping out of Cornell, Wolcott travelled to Colorado and to Mexico, looking for adventure, and then edited a lowbrow New York weekly called Tid-Bits, before settling in London, where he became an enterprising and ambitious agent—the Andrew Wylie of his time. Some people thought him vulgar, but most of literary London was charmed; Henry James and Edmund Gosse were especially smitten. Kipling loved Balestier, too, and their friendship, if it wasn't overtly sexual, had erotic overtones. They even wrote together—something Kipling never did with anyone else—collaborating on a novel, "The Naulahka," an adventure story about a priceless Indian necklace.
In December, 1891, Balestier died suddenly, of typhoid, at the age of twenty-nine. Kipling, who was visiting India, where his parents still lived, raced back to London, and scarcely a week after he returned he married Balestier's younger sister, in a dreary little ceremony that was more like a funeral than a wedding. Henry James gave away the bride, though he said later, "It's a union of which I don't forecast the future." Kipling, for their honeymoon, rewrote a love poem that he had intended for her brother, changing the pronouns and addressing her as "Dear Lass," instead of "Dear Lad."
If I'm going to be earwormed with Oh, passin' the love o' women—you, too, sunshine.
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I hope he gets that book of his own.
(Speak to me of New Grub Street.)
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Edwin Reardon: a literary novelist who married the wrong woman after one of his books became a surprise hit. Reardon would have been happy to toil away in obscurity, but his wife Amy has too much ambition and not enough interest in being a self-sacrificing helpmeet and full-time parent. She badgers him to write more marketable books, but their marriage is doomed, as, ultimately is Reardon himself. I appreciate that the book doesn't judge or punish Amy, but instead suggests that what she really needs is a no-fault divorce and subsidized childcare.
Jasper Milvain: Reardon's foil, a man who intends to milk the literary world for as much profit as he can, with no scruples whatsoever. The most charismatic of the bunch, with his vitality and unabashed self-interest. There's a Social Darwinist streak to the book, and he's the dog who eats the dog.
Whelpdale: Can't write, but he has excellent business sense: has made a career for himself as a literary agent, and is in the process of inventing the tabloid periodical. Also has a chronic case of Nice Guy/White Knight-ing -- he keeps on falling for young women in distressed circumstances, only to have them run off once he helps them get on their feet.
There are more (how can I neglect to mention Biffen, who slaves over his unreadable realist novel "Mr. Bailey, Grocer"!) but as this is getting to be an essay I'm just going to leave this quote here:
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You have made your point.