Book report: "Esther," by Henry Adams

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When I bought my Nook a few months ago, I discovered that there's lots of free public-domain content – which means that you can download pretty much any nineteenth-century novel you can think of.

 

 

I thought immediately of Henry Adams's “Democracy,” which I began some years ago and never finished. I finished it this time, and found it pretty good after all.

 

 

I then discovered another forgotten Adams novel: “Esther.” I just finished it the other day.

 

 

Well.

 

 

It starts out as traditional nineteenth-century fare, in that it's a whom-shall-I-marry? story. Lovely intelligent talented rich Esther Dudley is an aspiring artist in 1880s New York City. She is a free-thinker, like her cousin George Strong, a paleontologist. Now let us add three more people to the mix: Mr. Hazard, a charming and persuasive clergyman; Mr. Wharton, a wild but sentimental (and, unlike Esther, successful) artist; and Catherine, Esther's Colorado cousin, who is always described as “fresh as a prairie breeze.”

 

 

Esther and Mr. Hazard become a couple; so do Catherine and Mr. Wharton. The latter relationship falls apart early when it turns out Mr. Wharton is already married – to a French madwoman, no less. Divorce proceedings are undertaken, but, alas, romance between the artist and the Prairie Breeze is out of the question until Mr. Wharton is a free man.

 

 

Esther's relationship with Mr. Hazard is more complex. He proposes to her, and he is so damnably persuasive that she accepts. Having accepted him, she decides to become a good clergyman's wife. And she quickly discovers that she's too analytical and skeptical for the job.

 

 

If you think you see what's going to happen here, you are wrong. I am partial to books that surprise me; having read so many, I think of myself as beyond surprise, and am viscerally delighted when someone pulls a switcheroo on me. This book surprised me completely.

 

 

It's a slight book, not a masterpiece, but it has some nice things: some terrific vignettes of New York City in the Gilded Age; a very neat little side-trip to Niagara Falls in the wintertime (no, not a honeymoon); and some clever dialogue.

 

 

But the thing that draws me back over and over again to Henry Adams is his intelligence and acuity. If you'd asked me if there were any late-nineteenth-century American novels featuring an atheist heroine engaged to an Episcopal clergyman, I would have giggled and said, “I doubt it.” And what do you know? Henry Adams wrote one. And it is brief, and vivacious, and charming, and well worth a few hours of your time. You can find it, free for nothing, on Project Gutenberg. I recommend it.

 

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Democracy: An American Novel

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I finished “Democracy: An American Novel” last week.

 

 

And now I am very thoughtful.

 

 

It was published (anonymously) in 1880 by Henry Adams, great-grandson of John and grandson of John Quincy. In one sense, it's just a whom-shall-I-marry? story, like so many other nineteenth-century novels: two sisters, one widowed and reflective, the other spirited and unintellectual (are you thinking of the Dashwoods?), who move from genteel New York City to savage uncultured Washington. Madeleine, the elder sister, particularly wants to understand politics. She wants, per the narrator, to understand POWER.

 

 

It comes down to dueling courtships. Madeleine's two suitors are Senator Silas Ratcliffe (nice name, eh?) of Illinois, and a handsome young lawyer named John Carrington. Ratcliffe becomes Secretary of the Treasury through expert manipulation of a new and doltish president. Carrington, who has no real power or influence in the government, but who adores Madeleine, suffers in silence (are you thinking of the Bill Holden character in “Born Yesterday?).

 

 

Carrington is from a Virginia family and fought for the South in the Civil War. He is still called upon to answer for this from time to time. He tells Sybil, Madeleine's lively younger sister, that he “never intentionally shot at anyone.” (My college advisor, a German who'd fought in his country's army during World War II, told me once with a twinkle that he'd been in an antiaircraft unit, but that he “always shot between the planes.”)

 

 

Ratcliffe has skeletons in his closet too, but he fought on the winning side, so he’s actually proud of his misdeeds. At one point he admits to a group that, as Governor of Illinois during the Civil War, he actually threw a state election to ensure a Union-friendly victory, and that he'd do it again in a moment, to save his government. Carrington, his romantic rival, smells victory for a moment, thinking that Madeleine will see Ratcliffe as a villain; he then realizes that “the man who has committed a murder for his country is a patriot and not an assassin, even when he receives a seat in the Senate as his share in the plunder.”

 

 

As a story it's mild; it doesn't even approach Jane Austen, or even Trollope. But the subtlety and complexity of its depiction of American politics – and the kind of thinking (and non-thinking) that goes into political negotiation and manipulation – is amazing.

 

 

For example:

 

 

Ratcliffe, to endear himself to Madeleine, several times describes a political situation, and asks her, “What do you think I should do?”

 

 

To shut him up, she finally replies, a little coldly, “You should do whatever is in the best interest of the people.”

 

 

And he comes back with: “And what would that be?”

 

 

And Madeleine finds that she has no answer to the question.

 

 

And neither do I.

 

 

Uh-oh!

 

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