The Lesson of the Master (of Punctuation)

I’ve mentioned it before, but I love Melville House Publishing. If you like reading about books online, their blog, MobyLives (http://mhpbooks.com/mobylives/), is must read material.

Over the next year, I’ll be reading and reviewing Melville House’s series, The Art of the Novella (http://www.mhpbooks.com/bookseries.php?id=151). When we read fiction, it tends to be a novel between 250 and 350 pages, with the occasional foray into short story collections. This is the formula for a NYT’s Notable Book, or an attractive choice for book groups. Melville House’s novella series sheds light on those shorter, but not too short works, which are too often overlooked. The series is well packaged in sparse text-based design, with an emphasis on bold, but simple colors. They’ll look good in your back pocket, and they’ll add variety to your bookshelves.

The first book I’m reviewing is The Lesson of the Master by Henry James. A simple, funny book about art and what’s asked of the artist, The Lesson of the Master’s most interesting moments are those vague spaces that rumor, innuendo, and flirting build. A young writer, Paul Overt, is infatuated with an older writer, Henry St. George. The two meet at a party and develop a friendship based on a teacher/pupil relationship. Add in some love, some betrayal, and some good old-fashioned sexual chemistry, and you’ve got enough to keep anyone entertained. James is famous for his wonderful characters, particularly his female characters, and this novella is no different.

But I don’t want to talk about plot, and I don’t want to talk about characters. I want to talk about punctuation.

I’m not a fan of grammar rules. I think these rules are tools for snobs to mark who doesn’t belong. They’re intellectual passwords that have almost no relationship to intelligence. But, the rules exist, and they’re interesting in that James’s prose in this small book heavily stresses the boundaries of those rules in order to form a narrative that is bent to such an extent that it almost breaks. The fact that the prose doesn’t break proves just how strong language is, but the tension remains, and that tension is full of energy. Therefore the book is also full of an energy that might just snap and destroy the whole thing. An exciting place to be. Let me show you what I mean, here are the first two sentences of the novel:

He had been told the ladies were at church, but this was corrected
 by what he saw from the top of the steps–they descended from a
 great height in two arms, with a circular sweep of the most
 charming effect–at the threshold of the door which, from the long
 bright gallery, overlooked the immense lawn. Three gentlemen, on 
the grass, at a distance, sat under the great trees, while the
 fourth figure showed a crimson dress that told as a “bit of colour”
amid the fresh rich green.

The coordinating conjunction ‘but’ separates two complete, and completely odd sentences. ‘He had been told…’ ignores a useful conjunction, implies a falsehood, and is awkward to say out loud. Try saying it out loud right now, you’ll try to add some words. It is a complete sentence, but also a complete nightmare. The second part of the first sentence ‘…this was corrected…’ is also stressful because it contains six punctuation marks in a rather small space. This smashing together of punctuation makes the prose stutter, putting the reader on the defensive from the start. It’s a prime example of how punctuation can put us on guard, and makes us ill at ease. The ‘Three gentlemen…’ sentence is a simple list. It’s power is in the cadence the commas create. As you rhythmically bounce from comma to comma, you get the feeling of being at a party with great music. Through punctuation the first two sentences tell you that this story is going to be odd, awkward, and more than a little fun. James fulfills these promises in the next 121 pages.

We ask a lot of writers. They must move us to laughter and tears, make us nostalgic for the past and hopeful for the future, chronicling our lives with specificity while being thoughtful, energetic, and sometimes angry. We ask a lot, and they often deliver. It’s amazing. I think we should stop asking them to perform these small miracles in neatly packaged, made for marketing department sizes. I think Melville House’s novella series asks us to step out of our comfort zone and read a different type of Literature. I hope you’ll join me as I work my way through Melville House’s novella series, it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

–Brian Contine