Backlisted - A Marsh Island by Sarah Orne Jewett

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

For this episode we are joined by the writer, Noreen Masud, author of the acclaimed memoir, A Flat Place (currently shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction). The book she has chosen to discuss is A Marsh Island, a 19th century American novel by Sarah Orne Jowett, who is usually considered one of the foremost proponents of American regionalism – an assumption this episode investigates. The book was first serialised in the Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1885 and published by Houghton Mifflin later that year. The story centres on Dick Dale, a wealthy young urban bohemian artist who finds himself billeted with a traditional farming family in the middle of New England’s Great Salt Marsh. His impact on the small community over the course of a harvest provides what plot there is – but the novel is rich in atmosphere and interior reflection, exploring the complex tensions between rural and urban ways of life in late 19th century East Coast America. It was written at a moment in Jewett’s own life when she had just begun an unconventional relationship with another woman and the episode also explores how that plays out in the subversive presentation of the relationships in the novel. ---- *Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE show in London on Wednesday May 14th where we will be discussing The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford, with guest Alex Michaelides. * To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops. * For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm *If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted *You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Backlisted, a podcast which gives new life to old books. Today you find us on a road leading out of the coastal town in Essex County in the northeast of Massachusetts. It's August 1885. The heat hangs heavy over everything as we watch a young, elegantly dressed man sitting at an easel. He is sketching out what he sees in the foreground, a row of willows and rich green pasture broken by grey rocks and a single slender silver birch. Behind there flows a tidal river and the long, flat vista of the salt marshes stretching out to the horizon. I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher of Unbound, where people crowdfund the books they really want to read. And I'm Andy Miller, the author of The Year of Reading Dangerously. And today we are joined by a new guest, Noreen Masood. Hello, Noreen.

Hello, thank you for having me. Where are you calling from today, please? I'm calling from my basement office in the University of Bristol. Ah, basement, yes. Yeah, they really look after us here. Noreen is a lecturer in English literature at the University of Bristol and an AHRC slash BBC New Generation thinker. Her academic monograph, Stevie Smith and the Aphorism,

Hard Language, Oxford University Press, 2022, won the MSA First Book Award 2023 and the University English Prize 2024. Her memoir, Travelog, A Flat Place, Hamish Hamilton, Penguin and Melville House Press in the States, was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Nonfiction 2024 and the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Trust Young Writer of the Year Award and longlisted for the Jallak Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. Noreen, with those prize listings, it's almost inevitable that a flat place is going to become a huge bestseller. You must be getting ready for that to happen.

They're queuing up to read about flat landscapes. What could be better and more gripping? Exactly. flat landscapes what could be better and more gripping exactly so you're you're you're number one in smith's travel bookshops and stations and the publisher comes to you and they say we need another book from you fast otherwise you're going to lose your place against colleen hoover on the bestseller list have you got a book about stevie smith you could knock out quickly and you say well i have written a book about stevie smith you could knock out quickly and you say well i have written a book about stevie smith but it's not really um trade friendly and they say doesn't matter

doesn't matter can you rewrite the first one this is a long-winded way of asking you the question not would you do it obviously you would you want. Yeah, exactly. Smith in Smiths, exactly. So if you had to rewrite your academic book for a trade audience, what do you think you'd do differently? Brilliant question. I don't think I'd change much about the style. Yeah, this is a point where I become either, depending on your point of view, usefully or bewilderingly indifferent to what other people think. And the only thing that's interesting to me is that it's beautiful to read. Everything has to be beautiful to read. So I wouldn't change much about the style because I think the style of both books, they please me, they're playful, they're energetic. I'd cut out a lot of stuff. Academic books have to do these kinds of

performances of allegiances and traditions. They have to kind of explain why they've done certain things and not others, and that's just kind of boring. So that would all go. And I'd probably turn the footnotes into endnotes. That's good. You've thought this through. Look how ready you are. Oh, yeah.

I thought about this. Hamish Hamilton. Hamish Hamilton will be listening. Simon Prosser, I hope you're on the case. Okay, so I have got a question which I'm always interested by. So you're saying, I mean, I recognise entirely what you're saying about the need to provide academic context to the ideas you're presenting within an academic framework, right?

Is there an extent to which you feel obliged or obliged to resist, one way or the other, academic jargon as a way of reassuring potential readers at the expense of the beauty of the writing, or do you just try and hold that at arm's length? So are you thinking about my academic work or my trade writing here? No, if an academic's work, not your academic work per se, but the need to use particular kinds of words which indicate contemporary thought or approaches to the study of literature, which you wouldn't use in a trade writing.

Oh, interesting. Would you? So I should start by saying I think that specialist language is a language which provides a shorthand in which one word will do instead of a whole paragraph when you're speaking to other specialists. That serves a really important purpose in English studies, just as it does in physics and maths. So I'm, you know, in a weird sense, I'm pro-jargon where it's doing the job of communicating to other specialists.

Having said that, I would struggle to enjoy writing a sentence which relied heavily or I would feel very self-conscious about writing in a way that turned totally on one jargon word. And what I tend to do in that case is to play around it you know to sort of weigh it up and throw it and maybe add hopefully add a little well on my terms a little bit of lightness or or fun around it but I don't think I use jargon that much I'm sure people are reading my work now and screaming in in protest no I'm sure you don't my challenge to you is to work the phrase hermeneutic possibilities into our chat at some point today. I feel like I can't because hermeneutic is one of those words whose meaning I only hold very precariously in my head. I've taught

hermeneutics, I teach literary theory and yet there's a little part of me always that isn't quite sure whether I've got it right. So won't be happening but thank you thank you thank you for pushing back thank god for that I think you're absolutely right about that sense of somehow theory is always just slightly ahead of what you understand which is I think why so much of it is so difficult to understand but so joyful as well right at its At its best, good literary theory is absolutely the same as reading poetry. You know, I read Derrida and I'm in the presence of something that isn't just the conveying of content, it's poetry in the sense that it's always punning, it's more than just what it might quote unquote mean or translate into as a tool. So yeah,

long excursion into Derrida. It's great. Well, I think, you know, we're not in Kansas now, Toto, for the next hour in terms of theory, because we should say that the book, Noreen, that you've chosen to discuss for us is The Marsh Island by Sylvia Orne Jewett, first serialized in January 1885 in the Atlantic Monthly magazine

and published in full later that year by Houghton Mifflin. Working in the tradition of American regionalism, A Marsh Island centres on Richard Dick Dale, who is a young, urban, privileged, well-travelled and keen to develop his skills as an artist. One August afternoon, he finds himself painting in the middle of the great salt marsh in New England, north-eastern Massachusetts. As evening falls, he realises he's been stranded and is offered shelter by the Owens family, whose farm is centred on a small, idyllic hill, the Marsh Island of the book's title. Charmed by their old-fashioned honesty and integrity, and by the simple beauty of their daughter Doris, Dick decides to stay on and make an artistic study of the farm and its

dramatic vistas that surround it. His feelings for all the family, and in particular Doris, deepen as the book progresses and inevitably create tension with other members of the community, in particular Dan Lester, who has always assumed that Doris would become his wife. The book was Sarah Orne Jewett's personal favourite among her seven novels, although she's probably still best known for her 1896 novel The Country of the Pointed Furs. A March Island is set, like almost all her novels and stories, in the coastal region of New England, and it investigates the landscapes and the small communities that populate that landscape, with a detached eye for detail and nuance. In particular, the novel explores the tensions

between rural and urban ways of life in late 19th century East Coast America, and the book was written at a moment in Dewitt's's own life when she had just begun an unconventional relationship with another woman. And we will discuss how that plays out in the subversive presentation of relationships in the novel. So please join us to find out more about A Marsh Island by Sylvia Orne DeWitt after this short break. This is an advertisement from Better Help. Everyone knows therapy is great for solving problems, but turns out therapy has some issues of its own. Finding the right therapist, fitting into their schedule, and of course, the cost. BetterHelp can help solve these problems.

It's online, convenient, built around your schedule, and surprisingly affordable too. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more. That's betterhelp.com. Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news, we've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to to the main event skip to the good bit using the card member entrance let's go seize the night that's the powerful backing of american express visit amex.ca slash y amex benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. And we're back, champing at the bit to discuss a marsh island.

We also want to say we are backlisted. We're very excited. We've got a residency coming up in the west end of London. So if you live in London or the southeast and you want to come and see once a month a show being recorded, you will have that opportunity to do so and the first of them is taking place on the top floor of foils in charing cross road we will be discussing ford maddox ford's novel the good soldier with our guest alex mcclady's and perhaps someone else we're waiting to confirm and you can find a link to tickets to

purchase tickets in the show notes for this episode the date for your diary is the wednesday the 15th of may 2024 we start at 6 30 p.m and we will actually be recording two shows on that night first of all an episode of lock listed to go out on our Patreon. And then secondly, the discussion of Ford Maddox Ford's The Good Soldier. And that's the first of a regular residency. We will be recording one show a month. So we'd love, love, love it if some of our loyal listeners feel like coming along and joining us for that particular show and the shows that follow. Noreen, before I ask you where you first read this novel, is it quite unusual for you to spend time chatting about it with two other people who've read it? Oh, yes. Yeah, I've never spoken

in person to anyone else who's read it. bye is that true is that true yeah because we john and i was saying we both really enjoyed reading this book and i have to say what for me one of the reasons is i knew nothing about it i could find very little about it to back me up and so actually it was bracing to be thrown into a novel with comparatively little, comparatively few secondary sources to draw on. My own brain. That of John's and that of yours. So I'm genuinely looking forward to this discussion. Oh, I'm thrilled.

To find out more about the book itself, apart from anything else. I don't know how much I have to offer on that front, but let's find out. I doubt that. Now, OK, when did you first encounter this book or come across Sarah Orne Jewett? So I've known about Orne Jewett for a couple of years because one of, as well as writing my trade book, my memoir, Travelogue on Flat Landscapes, I'm also working on an academic monograph on flat landscapes in 20th century literature. And one of my main authors

that I look at is Willa Cather, who's better known for her sort of Prairies trilogy, My Antonia, O Pioneers, and The Song of the Lark. And Cather was mentored by Orne Jewett. Orne Jewett writes a really famous letter to Catherine in 1908, telling her how the key to her writing is going to be to focus on what Orne Jewett calls her own quiet center of life. And I think it's, you know, Catherine would later call The Country of the Pointed Furs one of the three books by American authors that was going to last, basically. She was an incredibly influential writer for the young Cathar. And you can see how after that, the kind of flat landscapes, the prairies around Cathar become her main focus, those flat landscapes. And so I looked at Orne Jewett's own work and was very struck by a book that was also about flat landscapes,

and it opens on that flat salt marsh. One of the things I'm really interested in in the monograph is the relationship between a flat landscape and queerness. What does it mean to be in a landscape that has no landmarks, nothing to orientate towards or away from? How do you locate yourself? How do you locate other people? How do you create attractions? What does desire look like in a landscape where there is nothing to look at or move towards? And obviously, Owen Jewett's relationship with Annie Fields, as well as the really fascinating queernesses in this novel. Yeah, I got really interested. Would I be right in thinking, for instance,

got really interested would i be right in thinking for instance speaking of the relationship between queerness and flat landscapes that in the uk dungeon s offers us an example of that very thing massively yeah in terms of jarman's occupation of that space and how he indeed and his garden have become synonymous with dungeon s are there other areas of the UK that fulfil that description? I think that all flat landscapes, even the kind of archetype of a flat landscape where there's no landmark, is performing or sort of challenges us to confront a kind of queerness. If sexual orientation is to be orientated towards someone,

that's how Sarah Ahmed talks about it, to be orientated towards something, that's how Sarah Ahmed talks about it, to be orientated towards something or something, think of it as something spatial, then in a flat landscape there is nothing to orientate towards and it becomes a question of what one doesn't orientate towards as much as what one does, a sense of refusal, a sense of veering away from or having nothing to locate yourself in relation to.

But having said that, I think that most flat landscapes there are in the UK are very watery flat landscapes. It's not like we've not got the salt flats of Brazil here. A flat landscape that's related to water is one that's constantly changing. I think of Morecambe Bay. The water's always coming out and receding. The safe paths through are always changing it's a very unstable landscape a very unpredictable landscape and there's a hint of menace isn't there

as well yeah obviously thinking about the terrible cockle picker more conveyor story but it's like the hulks in great expectations you know there's always this these that although you you can see for miles there's always the possibility that there's a magwitch going to leap out of the marsh and grab you by the throat. It's really interesting. Flat landscapes are so threatening. You know, I think of Beckett and so much of Beckett happens on just these bare landscapes. So much of these sort of like post-apocalyptic bare experiences what's rarer is experiences of flat landscapes as good or interesting or potentially enriching and i focus

in my book on in my academic monograph on flat landscapes that do more than just upset and distress yes you've made me think about um a to the Curious by M.R. James, very specifically the television adaptation with the repeated shot of the man being pursued across a very flat landscape. Brilliant, yep, yep. Pursuit's big in flat landscapes. Pursuit, yeah. And also I discovered a very pleasing academic term

that I hadn't encountered before in relation to this novel specifically, and that was metronormative. Yes. That's hilarious. I don't even know what that means. Do you know what that is? It's you, Andy. Oh, is it to do with the city? I've got two options, right?

Tell me which is right. Go on, here we go. So either metronormative is about the city as shaping our sense of what is normal and what is good, how society should shape itself. Or it's to do with metrosexual normativity. I'm hoping it's one of those two. Is it neither? Well, okay.

In the context in which I encountered it, it was discussing the character of Dick in this novel as arguably retreating at the end of the novel into a metronormative existence with, what's he called? Bradfield? Yes, Bradfield. Bradish. In other words, it's more difficult to be easy.

Bradish. It's easier to be queer in metropolitan settings, which have networks of places, cafes, etc, etc, etc, right? So it's an alternative to heteronormative, it's metronormative. And exactly as you say, one of the wonderful things about this book is the presentation of landscape as a place of unmooring, a place in which identity starts to dissolve. I wonder, would you be kind enough then to read us the opening of the novel? For sure. And this is a bit where flat landscapes get really

weird and raises a question of why or how we look at flat landscapes. One August afternoon, the people who drove along the east road of a pleasant Sussex County town were much interested in the appearance of a young man who was hard at work before a slender easel near the wayside. Most of the spectators felt a strong desire to linger. If any had happened to be afoot, they would surely have looked over the artist's shoulder. As it was, they inspected with some contempt the bit of scenery which was honoured with so much attention. This was in no way remarkable. They saw a familiar row of willows and a foreground of pasture, broken here and there by grey rocks, while beyond a tide river

the marshes seemed to stretch away to the end of the world. Almost everyone who drove along would have confidently directed the stranger to a better specimen of the natural beauties of the world. Almost everyone who drove along would have confidently directed the stranger to a better specimen of the natural beauties of the town, yet he seemed unsuspicious of his mistake and painted busily. Sometimes he strolled away, apparently taking aimless steps, but always keeping his eyes fixed upon the landscape, while once he flung himself impatiently at full length on the soft grass in the shade of the nearest tree. One would have said that such enthusiastic interest in his pursuit was exceptional rather than common with him, but he presently took a new view of his subject from

this point, and after some reflection rose and went nearer to a slender birch tree which stood in his left foreground. There was a touch of uncommon colour on one of its leaves, which had been changed early, and he held the twig in his hand, wrestled it, and looked up at the topmost branches, which seemed all a shiver at the strange attention. The light breeze passed over. The young tree was still again. A boy might have bent it and cut and trimmed it with his jackknife for an afternoon's fishing, and the artist reached out and for a moment held the stem which had lately put on its first white dress, then he let it spring away from him. Trees that grow alone have a great deal more individuality than those which stand in companies. The young man gave

another look at the charming outline of this one and went back toward his easel. As he turned, he was suddenly attracted by the beauty of the landscape which had been behind him all the afternoon. The moor-like hills were beginning to grow purple, and a lovely light had gathered into the country which lay between him and the western sky. He condemned himself for having been so easily suited with his point of view and felt dissatisfied and displeased for a moment with his day's work. At his feet grew an enticing crop of mushrooms and with a sigh at the evasiveness of art he stooped to gather the little harvest and filled a handkerchief with the delicate pink and white fungi, tossing away the sunburnt

ones of yesterday's growth and biting two or three of the smallest buttons with a delicate pink and white fungi, tossing away the sunburnt ones of yesterday's growth and biting two or three of the smallest buttons with a good relish. If I only had some salt now, he said to himself, I wonder what time it is. Then he looked somewhat eagerly along the road, as if he expected a companion. Nobody could be discovered. It was some time since any traveller had passed that way. The few wagons that had gone to market early in the morning had long since returned, and the greater part of the men and horses were busy on the marshes, for this was the time of year for cutting the salt hay. When he looked at his sketch again, it made him forget his other

thoughts, and holding his brush at arm's length and again stepping to and fro lightly he put in some necessary touches with most delicate intention and pleasure not so bad he said half aloud though my birch tree does not look as if she could flit away if i frightened her as the real one does that's so good that's really wonderful thank you at all i think one of the things i find so interesting about this novel is how um this isn't an academic observation is how straightforwardly that prose is i mean as the as the pleasure of listening to you read that was how balanced and rhythmical and well judged that is just as a series of sentences. Completely. And it's very rare that you read something where the only awkwardnesses that fall are the ones that are doing a job, you know? Yes, right. I cut you off when you were talking earlier about how you

first encountered this book. Let me ask you a slightly different question then. How soon into the reading of A Marsh Island did your ears prick up, as it were, and you think, oh, this is something different. This is really fascinating. That first passage. Yes, I wonder whether that was the case. Yeah, okay. To me, that image of somebody absorbedly painting a landscape in which there is nothing to look at, quote unquote, or in which we are told there is nothing to look at,

immediately you know that you're in the presence of someone with a rare mind, right? I'm going to agree, yes. That's a pretty, that's pretty thin gruel for the start of a novel, most people would think, right? Here's somebody painting something that's a pretty that's pretty thin gruel for the start of a novel most people would think right here's somebody painting something that's not very interesting it's like a catnip to me just the idea that to see as worthwhile something that other people would not is the first thing that i thought was so interesting and to kind of call into question how we value things and what we value i

mean is is the one big thing. And then the second thing that I love about this is how much he changes his mind in that passage. He has a moment of seeing it as others might see it and feeling dispirited, and then he gets a little bit distracted, and then he comes back to it and says, actually, it's all right, really. And that to me is something so unusual in a novel. The only person who really does anything similar, I think, is D. H. Lawrence. Lawrence is so good at tracing a mind through all its little changes, all its little ficklenesses, and not suggesting that the final point of view cancels out what's come before. He's interested in the mind as it changes and respecting it in each alteration.

And Jewett's also very good at that. I'm going to defer to my colleague, John Mitchinson, who is far more of a Lawrence aficionado than I am. What do you make of that, John? I think that's right. I think there is always a feeling that you're being beaten up a bit by Lawrence, you know. He's always kind of grabbing you and pushing your nose into stuff and saying, oh, this is what I'm, what about this? Whereas this is so delicate.

And almost the way she builds up, I think that not much, let's be honest, happens in this book. And that's one of the reasons that Ant and I both love it. Right? Yeah. Yeah, it's not distorted by plot, that's for sure. Oh, God, there's so much to say about that plot, isn't there? And that bizarre little attempt in inverted commas at a climax that turns out, you know,

that turns out to have been completely unnecessary yeah we we must don't worry everybody spoilers here are really not anything you need to worry about so um what i noticed in i i went there's an excellent web resource for sarah orne jewett which i will we which I will ensure is linked to on our website. But what I noticed about most of the contemporary reviews of a marsh island is several of them refer to it as a watercolour or a painting that her, you know, without a pun intended on the marshy surroundings, it's the qualities of scenery and scene setting that when was writing were the things that she was best known for.

And I have a review here from the Overland monthly june 1885 and um noreen i will ask you to comment on this you know go on stick it to this 140 year old reviewer miss jewett's news story has the grace of restraint perfect simplicity and directness and the best of breeding in matter and manner. But this comment, and most other such that could be made, are merely repeating what everyone knows already of Miss Jewett's invariable traits as a writer. Her style may be called well-nigh perfect. This particular story is perhaps less delightful than A country doctor, yet that is more because the subject is less notably happy than anything else. There is not much story, but one does not want much story

in Miss Stewart's books. They are transcripts of bits of life, not regularly constructed novels with plot and machinery. The very fields and sea and farming folk are in them. They do not pretend to go as deeply into human nature, nor to be as minutely or vividly true to it as some novels, but in its own way the characterisation is perfect. They are like a painter's outdoor studies. Wonderfully uniform they are too. In this this latest one neither falling away from the mark of previous achievement nor improving upon it is visible in work so perfect in its own way perhaps nothing of the sort is to be expected the idly is miss jewett's line and tragedies and dramas and the like are not to be sought among her quiet and fragrant fields do you know what i think is so

funny in a kind of bitter resigned way about that is that like this this reviewer you know bless them has has completely i don't know i wouldn't have recognized the novel they're describing from that description you know because how can you think it's superficial in terms of characterization? But the irony is, and it's fitting, I suppose, but this is a novel precisely about our total inability to read one another. The way that we're never seeing each other, we're never speaking to each other, we're never hearing each other, we're only ever addressing versions of our own fantasies and our own projections. And, of course, this is what's happening in that review, as happens in so many reviews of work by women.

Small things happen and people are stupid enough to mistake that for nothing happening. That's beautifully put. Absolutely. I absolutely write. Absolutely write. A recurring theme of this podcast has very much been along those lines, in fact. John, you said that there was some surprise expressed by members of our Patreon community that we were going to be talking about a marsh island rather than another title by Sarah Orne Jewett.

In what tradition is Sarah Orne Jewett writing? It gets called American regionalism, which is such a broad, I mean, were you to be a kind of lazy Wikipedia type researcher that I clearly am, you would find obviously Willa Cather, who we've talked about. Go on. I think more interestingly, and I think there is a real connection with Kate Chopin's The Awakening, which we covered last year. And indeed we covered, didn't we?

We covered My Antonia by Willa katha with with with the great hermione lee is i mean i would say it's novels about particularly strong and american regions you know you find richard ford on the list of regional writers as well as you know eudora welty and mark twain and john kennedy tool it becomes so broad as to be meaningless shall i give you the definitions a A focus on the setting of the story, often to such a degree that appears little else happens beyond description of the setting and people. Characters that are somewhat stereotypical, offering a picture of actual perceived common traits from that region. A great deal of nostalgia and resistance to change. Use

of local dialect, especially in the dialogue. thick descriptions of people, places, and things that the author means to highlight. Well, yes, you could say, you know, guilty as charged with this book. Yes, you could imagine there's a lot of writers who do that. It's like people who write local histories. She is so precise that every single plant and bird in this novel has been observed by somebody who really has watched it. And not only does she observe the details, I think't seem heavily freighted with significance for the characters. And that's what makes me, that's what I love about it, I have to say. I just feel it's such a rich dance. I mean, couldn't be further away from that reviewer's description of it. And if that makes American regionalism fine, but it's a lot better than, you know, to be honest, it's a lot more readable than Harriet Beecher Stowe.

I totally agree with you. And I wouldn't recognise the novel from that review, but equally, neither would I recognise it from as an example of regionalism. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Not necessarily because of my ignorance of the genre, but more because that's not what I took away from my reading of the novel. What did you take away? I feel the novel is about Dick, the artist defined or not defined by his or her environment.

Now, I'm bringing my own preoccupations obviously that's what fiction's for after all exactly right but to me so every or most of these reviews don't really talk about him and actually most of the reviews don't actually talk about the characters they tend very much to talk about landscape or as you say that had the smallness of the observation and those those observations are particular but they're not insignificant and to pick up something you said earlier things that almost happen but then don't or things that you think might happen on a on a bigger canvas in on an oil painting the great swathe of drama, they don't happen. And of course, that's what's good about it.

That's what's so interesting about it. The space that is left, not just for the character to wander around in, but for us as readers to wander around in. Completely. And as somebody whose main focus is on landscape, I have to say, I read this book, because I read so many books,

I was like, give me more landscape. Get these characters off. Get out of the way. I need to look at the landscape. So for me, I definitely didn't think there weren't enough characters. But when you were talking, Andy, I was thinking about, absolutely, this is a novel about Dale, right? And then I thought, well, could we say it's a novel about Doris? Could we say it's a novel about Mrs. Owens? And actually actually the only character who isn't necessarily massively fleshed out as Mr. Owens. You know, even it's to an extent, it's a novel about Bradish, you know, who sort of, he weirdly haunts the novel throughout. Yes, that's really true. That's really true and fascinating. And you've used the word haunts horse as well which i want to come back to

which is which is very important but but this idea this constant siren call by dale's chum back in new york um who's mentioned repeatedly you know is that encoding something into the novel that contemporary readers would have recognized or is it do you think it's our latter sensibility that's being brought to bear? Great question. And obviously there's a deliberate ambiguity, but I think that bit where Dan Lester thinks about the kind of down-to-earth, you know, good at farming Dan Lester,

thinks about Dale as a bit of a Miss Nancy. Yes, he uses that exact term. That's a term that people would have recognised and people would have recognised the implications of that. Can I just say, I'm not 100%. I think one of the joys of this book is actually that I think the father is really quite a good character, I mean, quite a complex character.

And there's an extraordinary bit that Israel Owens and Doris get to ride together. I mean, emotionally, she's already decided that, spoiler alert, that she feels she needs to commit herself to Dan, the local boy who's loved her since since and that the complex feelings that Dick has elicited in her from you know being sophisticated and good looking and urbane and artistic she's decided to that that's she can't really bridge that gap and there's a marvellous bit where her her father understands that understands that and there's a bit of an uncomfortableness between them. I just think, I just think, it really captures that very, very complicated relationship between a father who has lost his son,

because Andy, I think you're probably, when you mentioned haunting, the book is haunted by the memory, or the Owens family are haunted by the memory of Israel Jr. who died aged 20 in the Civil War. And that is an amazing bit where the father, she says her father said he's going to go out and cut hedges and she finds him hours later up in the hills

just sitting with his head in his hands. You know, the idea of grief, unprocessed grief, which this book is about as well and which in some strange way dick becomes the kind of the the the character that enables the family to come to terms with their grief but i i think i think there is no that i mean maybe temperance the the slightly sceptical maid is a stock character, but I'm amazed for a book of this period where you really don't have any kind of wasted material, any characters that are just thrown. Like you say, Bredish is actually, like you say, Andy, haunts the book in the way that Israel Jr. haunts the book.

If we're talking about figures in a landscape, is this novel about community or is it about individuals trying to find one another in a landscape? Oh, wow. I might be really provocative and say that I don't think it's about either. I think this is a novel about money and class.

Ooh. Yeah. So one of the, I mean, the thing, Dick turns up, immediately he launches into fantasy. This is the thing, talking about it as a regional novel, it seems to me that this novel is like mocking or satirizing, you know, the sort of quaint regionalism, you know, because Dale turns up, the painter, and he's like,

ooh, isn't this beautiful? Isn't this quaint? Oh, and he starts interfering with Mrs. Owen's own decorations and saying, oh, you should keep this. You should get rid of that. He's designing their farmhouse in accordance with his own regionalist fantasies and his painterly fantasies of what a homely farmhouse should look like. He's always arranging things. And the reason he can fantasize about Doris or maybe kind of get, you know, marrying Doris and these tiny little, the momentary desire to kiss Doris, which is gone as soon as it came. All of these are games that you can only play if

you've got money. And it's really explicit about the fact that Dick has not achieved what he should have achieved. He's been lazier than he should have done. He's always thought of as having this infinite potential that he never actually needs to fulfill because he's got money and he's got more money than Bradish. Bradish is always driven to be productive and useful and to paint and to succeed because he has to or he can't live. But Dale is a man of independent means, which means that he can enter people's lives and enter into a fantasy and then leave again. Again, I'm thinking of, and this is sounding very mean to Dick. I don't mean to be mean to Dick. But it reminds me of The Great Gatsby.

And to be the way that if you have money, you can be careless. You can come and smash things up a little bit and then go away and everything's fine and you're not affected. a little bit and then go away and everything's fine and you're not affected. And this novel steers away from that, but there's a little bit of Dick getting to come and play around and cause trouble and then leave. Is Jewett drawing a parallel between herself and that character in terms of the artist fetishising

not just the landscape, but the types of individual within it. Yeah. Right? So Dick is always seeing the mother and the father, and to some extent Doris, as charming types produced in this kind of regional area, which seems to me like a fairly self-aware comment on regionalism as a trait in literature. She's saying, I am looking at these

individuals. I am looking at my characters. I mean, I got the strong feeling I was reading someone writing with a consciousness much ahead of their time. If you told me this was written in the 1930s, I think I would have believed you. Yeah, definitely. That's really interesting. Is it important that Dale is an outsider coming in and then he goes away? As Orne Jewett is always, you know, in her letter to Cather saying, write from where you are, write about what is around you. Don't enter and don't sort of feel that you have to go into other spheres. Write from your starting point. Yeah. But I definitely think there's a real anxiety about art and about depiction and what it does, what it distorts. Well, when we come back after this break, we're going to hear another little section of the novel

which is devoted to how the artist sees the landscape after he's been there for a while, which I found totally fascinating. So join us after the jump and we'll pick up there. Here we are again. I've just got a little part here I would like to read you. Just a paragraph, I think. This is near the beginning of Chapter 9.

So Dick Dale has been staying with the family because he's hurt his ankle. And he's out in the fields and he's painting and he's spending time with people. But he's also undertaken to make a drawing of the younger israel owen the uh their lost child and there's the beginning of a sense that jewett gives you that the longer dale spends time in this environment the more he begins to dissolve into the spirit and i use the word advisedly the spirit of um the late soldier and the landscape itself so this is what this is what i mean here's just this one paragraph in these days nobody stopped to think much about dick dale's lingering at the farmhouse.

His temporary invalidism was the cause of most friendly relations with all the family. His presence appeared completely natural and inevitable. When he had given Israel Owen an excellent drawing made from the small picture of the soldier, there was no longer any question of the artist's being welcome to anything upon the island. Dick had taken great pains with this experiment in portrait making. He told himself that he was not ashamed of it either, though he was most grateful for having had some aid to contentment during the few days he had kept his lame foot still in the clock room. He was not without his fancies about the portrait's subject,

for as he worked, he had a vague consciousness of an unseen presence, and some most telling touches were almost made in spite of himself. It really is. He thought often of the possible unseen dwellers in such old houses. And as he resumed his out-of-door rambles, it was with a continued sense of companionship, or as if another was sharing the use of his own eyes. That's very eerie. So e eerie in its own quiet way.

So eerie. What is happening there? Why does Dewitt need to evoke that sense of haunting, which she does throughout the book? One of the many things I, as I think I've said, love about this book is the way that it opens up so many possibilities, but has the sense not to pursue them to their conclusions. A lesser writer wouldn't have said that unless they were writing a ghost story.

But what Jewett does here is, is she allows a ghost in and then the ghost goes away. How great, how great. It could have so easily become a kind of ten-a-penny Gothic sort of fantasia, but it didn't. What I love so much about that passage, both the Owen parents allow Dick Dale to stay and kind of enjoy him, partly because they are so desperate to see in him the features of their son. I think the mother says, oh, he favors him around the eyes and the forehead.

Does he? And then all the characters are looking and they're like, yeah, I guess he does. But, you know, again, that's strongly hinted this is just a projection. That's fascinating. Yeah. And the father thinks that, she thinks that. And there's all this kind of mass decision to project Israel upon to Dale. And then I think it's so interesting that Dale sort of takes that up in turn and then kind of projects onto Israel. I love that word. He talks

about the telling touches made almost without his own agency. And I don't know what telling means there. And I've been musing on it as you were reading is because telling might mean accurate or correct but it might also create the sense of conveying something or betraying something that you maybe subconsciously knew only subconsciously or didn't mean to admit some most telling touches yeah telling were made almost almost in spite of himself almost in spite of himself. Almost in spite of himself. And I don't know whether they're good. So is there also a suggestion that it's inspiring him in some way?

Absolutely. That a more, forgive me, metronormative environment would not? There's the other thing, we've got to pull this in really, is that this book was written within written within i think a year or two of jewett moving in with annie fields who was the widow of a friend and they between them established a what was new discovery to me something at the time was called a boston marriage where two women lived together reasonably respectively and also you know know, exchanged vows and rings, but lived more or less as partners.

I was intrigued by that, though. So this is a bit like the phrase Miss Nancy. Was the phrase Boston marriage a euphemism, or was it a separate asexual arrangement that was widely there's a lot of debate around that yeah and i think what's very clear is that a boston marriage could be so many things to different people and yet absolutely as john was saying some exchanged vows and rings and very clearly had a sexual arrangement for others you know i always think of that useful word friend yeah it's this lovely capacious word to say we friends, it can mean to say there is nothing sexual between us, there's nothing romantic. But equally,

of course, friend has this long history in Western writing of me, oh, we are friends. Oh, yeah. You know, sexy friends, right? It both kind of dismisses and contains sex and the possibility of sex and romance. So absolutely many Boston marriages were clearly romantic relationships. I admire the work of Sharon Marcus who says, well, sometimes things were just as they were described. Sometimes friends are just friends. And I think, yeah, we have to open the possibility of, as you say, asexual arrangements or other kinds of queerness, other kinds of unaccommodated ways of relating to each other. There's an early episode of Dad's Army in which Private Godfrey says to Manoring,

I thought it'd be rather nice if my friend could come. And Manoring turns to Wilson and and said he's got a friend that's perfect perfect so but also in this novel the word companion and companionship was was used in the the section you read noreen i know the editor of the edition we've got here um don james mccloughlin says companion or companionship is used 20 times in this short novel as a signal of the one who does or doesn't walk

beside me I suppose in a sense Don't you think that idea that she I mean unlike most of her books where she's often got women narrators you feel that what's really interesting her in this book is Dick and Dick kind of dropped in women writers, you feel that what's really interesting her in this book is Dick.

And Dick kind of dropped in, almost in deus ex machina way, into this apparently normal, wholesome, rural family that has got way more stuff going on than you immediately, you know, the rural idyll. It's not shattered, but Dick is the rural idyll, it's not shattered. But Dick is the sort of the instrument that changes that. But unlike, I would say, a kind of a Hardy or a Lawrence, it's so far from melodrama, this book, isn't it? Apart from the climax. As you say, the climax is kind of some young man telling a story that turns out not to be true and a woman rowing like a maniac in the early mornings.

Having to be rescued, yes. There's a sense, you know, when you get those bits of Doris saying, you know, she felt as she were on the verge of a greater sea, which might prove either wonderful happiness or bitter misery. And confused and dismayed by her loyalty to both her lovers she hid her face in her hands that she's trembling on the brink of being a kind of tragic heroine but in the end she isn't that was something you alluded to very early on Noreen that that that this book is about as much to do with what doesn't happen as what does which I think is one of the things that makes it so fascinating everything just turns all the decisions in this novel, all the incidents such as they are, and all the feelings that the characters have about each other

turn on the tiniest things. That really hit me in this reread. There's one bit where it becomes clear that a lot of the feelings that Dick Dale is having is at one point, it's because he's hungry. You know, like whether we love something or hate it like you know let's not discount the role of hanger in informing these things like and there's another there's another bit where mrs owen is like oh yeah you could see she's thinking oh you know dick there'll be a great match for my doris you know because she's always wanted to get into town and have more adventures in her life and she thinks that might be a way in for that and then she finds he's got some writing in italian among his things and that and oh that sways her and she's like oh

actually no maybe Dan would be better tiny things I love that Noreen Massoud is a reader in hanganormative studies at the University of Bristol but when he goes back home with his aunt you know there's a terrible kind of like it's like the embarrassment of of like Joe Gardner arriving in London only in reverse when the aunt's suddenly on the farm and she says you aunt you know there's a terrible kind of like it's like the embarrassment of of like joe gardry arriving in london only in reverse when the aunt suddenly on the farm and she says you know do you think i can get butter from them and he looks at the light and it was obvious that he never really thought about but that's not he's not here for the butter but then when he goes home with them and he's really you know he's he's having all these thoughts she just puts in the line he'd

rarely enjoyed his supper more because he's got back to the comforts of urban life and i would like to self-advocate here as i'm being encouraged to do by my counselor and say that it's all very well you two talking about dh lawrence and thomas hardy they are two of my least favorite writers in the world. I do know that. And I much preferred Sarah Orne Jewett leaving something to the imagination rather than attempting to scribble in every corner of the page, as those two gents do, right? Do you know what I mean, though? I mean, I don't know if that's a function of style or gender

or the relationship of how a female novelist would see themselves in that era as opposed to how a male novelist, certainly in the case of the important men, Hardy and Lawrence, how they would think of themselves. You're laughing, Noreen. I hate those guys. Let's just stop. Well, Angie, say what you really feel.

Don't hold back. Yeah, say what you really feel. My counselling is going well. Can I run a quiz? Okay. It's not often I do this, Andy. Yes, please. I want Tess, our producer, to run a clip

and I want you to listen to the clip and then I want either one of you to tell me why on earth we would be playing this clip in this episode. Reckon you're the first? No, sir, I don't. Ye ain't. Ye ain't. Fine and she were. Clean built and trig looking.

None more fleet in 64 than she. We were on the brakes. A meet me at work. Why ask you why? What's the terrible part of a sailor's life? Ask you lad. It is when the work stops when you're twixt wind and water. Doldrums.

Doldrums. Evil. Eviler than the devil. Boredom makes men to villains and the water goes quick lad vanished the only medicine

is drink keeps them sailors happy keeps them agreeable keeps them calm keeps them stupid right there you go well I've immediately lost the quiz i've got no idea

okay i just wondered why john you taking a tape recorder down to the pub in the village you you well of course it is an excerpt from the lighthouse and that is willem defoe and robert patterson playing two remote lighthouse keepers but do you know why that is of any relevance to this book? Tell us. Because, I will tell you if you don't know, because Robert Eggers, his research for the accents, the dialects and the accents, was entirely based on the work of Sarah Orne Dewitt. Because it's basically, it's based initt because it's basically based in Maine. The lighthouse is based in Maine.

And he read – even the word trig that he uses appears in the book. Noreen, do you want to have a stab at that in the next reading? Do you want to give it some broad – I cannot think of a worse idea. Yes, me neither. but there you go sarah orn jewett a consultant to uh to the a24 hit hit hit movie the lighthouse that is a magnificent i um norine i'd just like to go back to this idea please about um i was being i was i was being, you know, exaggerating for comic effect on Lawrence and Hardy. But with Sarah Orne Jewett, this idea of things that don't happen

or moments of intense drama around a phrase said or unsaid is something I would associate, say, with Henry James rather than with Sarah Orne Jewett. Is this a thing in Victorian literature in general, that the moment of high drama in stillness, is that something we should look out for more? That's a brilliant question. So I'll give you the disclaimer first.

I'm not a Victorianist. So I'm sure I can hear my colleagues rising up to protest and disagree with me. I think what I associate it with certainly, I think the Henry James think is exactly right. It's that kind of turn of the century movement towards what starts to look like early modernism. And again, I'm thinking of that biscuit in Henry James. That's the key moment, isn't it? The biscuit on the floor in, is it the Wings of the Dove? I can never remember. She sees the biscuit on the floor and it tells everything.

It betrays the affair. It betrays what has been. Again, absolutely that drama in the tiny or conversely, the way that drama may slightly exist off screen or is something that nearly happens but doesn't quite happen yeah i think it's a very late victorian early early 20th century thing it seemed to me fairly radical in this novel that it in the terms of the time certainly as as it must have

been bafflingly underdeveloped you make every signal that you're bringing these two disparate people together and then they quietly decide no i won't it's so brilliant and i absolutely think it's radical and it was and that's it what I love about it it wasn't that Orangio didn't finish it it's that she goes to great lengths to emphasize the randomness of all of these things and the fact that it nearly happened and again the climax is a good example you know um Doris is running to kind of stop Dan from sailing off and leaving her behind and then when she arrives he's already decided not to go because his mother convinced him

because he didn't like the look of the rest of the crew. She didn't need to add that bit. She didn't need to add that bit. She could absolutely have sunk into the traditional patterns of romance where Doris did rescue, save Dan and sort of confess her love at that moment. But she added that bit to specifically

steer us away from the romance plot or the romance plot in that follows that simple shape where individual characters of agency where people know what they want and pursue it and where what happens happens because it's right because it's the right thing for those people um I love this bit in the book where Doris says um if she should ever love anyone, she wished the lover would understand and say little about it to her or to anyone else. That's a bit that always stays with me. The idea that you just want everyone to know everything about you already and you don't want to have the trouble of having to explain yourself or ask for anything. And another way of saying that is it's a desire for the kind of normal machinery of romance to step in and sweep you away, I think. Yes, absolutely. Yes.

I love that Jewett refuses to let that happen. We are going to have to wrap up in a minute. John, I've got a quiz for you. Great. This novel features one of my favourite things in novels. This novel features one of my favourite things in novels. I've got to give you a clue. I want to say, what is it in this novel, apart from obviously its plotlessness, that I particularly like?

There's the way in which the novel ends. What is it about this novel that makes it a special one um and and is it specifically to do with the ending of the novel yes okay no spoilers everyone i'm going to read the last paragraph i was going to say it's it's it's a i mean it's i think it's a brilliant ending to a novel but it's i do like novels with brilliant endings but that's not what i'm thinking of. I suppose what you're getting at is that it's a completely, I mean, let's be honest, it's... You do me too much credit to think I'm getting at anything. I'm not.

There's a specific thing. Nothing's really tied up. No, I do like that. Again, I like that. That's not what I'm thinking of. No, the great thing about A Marsh Island is it's one of those novels that ends with its own title. Yeah.

Ah, of course. Mrs. Owen was listening eagerly. Now, Doris, she said, don't you wish you was there a queen in it? But Doris and Dan gave each other a happy look that was answer enough. They could not imagine anything better than life was that very day on their own marsh island you know and to you know i always say wouldn't middlemarch be a better novel if it ended with somebody saying and to think it all happened right here in middlemarch

or and that's why we called him the great gatsby. That would be so superior to what Fitzgerald tried. I adore that. And I adore how knowingly naff it is. I think it's great. Where she's refused at every point to do the easy thing. We are meant to see this, I think, as an absolute moment of absurdity of Antwerp IMAX. It's brilliant. Hats off. And I mean that as high praise. High praise.

But now it's time for us to leave Dick and Doris and the strange attractions of Marsh Island. Huge thanks to Noreen for giving us the chance to explore the subtleties of Sarah Ornjurt and to Tess Davidson for turning our conversation into something fit for the oral archive. If you would like show notes with clips, links and suggestions for further reading for this show and the 209 that we've already recorded, please visit our website at backlisted.fm. If you want to buy the books discussed on this or any of our other shows, visit our shop at bookshop.org and choose backlisted as your bookshop if you want to hear backlisted early and ad free subscribe to our patreon www.patreon.com forward slash backlisted your subscription brings

other benefits if you subscribe at the lot listener level for a monthly fee that's less than a brace of colin hoover paperbacks you'll get not one but two extra exclusive podcasts every month it features the three of us talking recommending the books films and music we've enjoyed in the previous fortnight for those of you who enjoyed our what have you been reading slot that's where you'll now find it it's an hour of tunes musings and superior book chat plus lot listeners get their names read out like this elise cogan thank you adrian atterbury thank you mary ham thank you penelope faith thank you. Adrian Atterbury, thank you. Mary Hamm, thank you. Penelope Faith, thank you. John McInerney, thank you. RJ, thank you. Sharon Hennessy, thank you. Matt Fox, thank you. Ben

Clay, thank you. Deborah Quick, thank you. How pleasing that we had people called both Quick and Fox in that run through. Thank you, everyone. Now, Noreen, before we go, is there anything you would like to add on the subject of a marsh island that we didn't get to in our conversation? The only thing I'd say is I love, one of the things I love is how often Dale runs out of energy. I don't find that very relatable. You know, it's like, I would do it. I just got tired.

you know it's like i would do it i just got tired he doesn't seem to be an artist who's terribly what's the word intense no he gets intense he's he has yeah but he's kind of like you know and and it's that that's sadder and a wiser man thing you know what he's learned is that he has to really put his notes to the grindstone by the end of the novel and get on with his paintings yes yes know, where he's learned that he has to really put his notes to the grindstone by the end of the novel and get on with his paintings. Yes, yes, that's right. But yeah, no, he's wonderfully unintense. And I love those lapses into kind of hunger or fatigue.

There's something slightly Vic and Bob about him falling over as well. Yes! Oh, how do I fall? And then she obviously has to look after him. I'm thinking of a tiny sub-genre which would include huisman against nature of i i love the scenario where the metropolitan dandy uh flanners their way into a harsh unforgiving rural landscape

that always appeals to me great probably probably, again, for personal reasons. I really enjoy that. They're all so nice to him, though. That's the thing. They're all so nice. They don't really make him feel bad at all. There's no baddies in this novel. You know, even Dan Lester, yeah.

Exactly what you're talking about. It's not like an American werewolf in London where they go into the slaughtered lamb and everyone turns around in a hostile or or or um or or all manner of other it's like he he he knocks upon a door and they go hello would you like to come here i mean this and other extraordinary revelations in the next installment of a marsh island next instalment of A Marsh Island. I think it's a brilliant novel. I think this is a wonderful book. And for me, one of the nicest and most stimulating discoveries we've had on Backlisted for a while.

So thank you, Noreen. Wonderful, wonderful choice. Oh, I'm so thrilled you liked it. Thank you for having me. Thanks very much, everybody. And we'll see you next time. Back in a fortnight.