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March 2011 Book of the Month: The Raven's Bride by Lenore Hart

A monthly discussion on varying themes guided by our members. (Book of the Month discussions through December 2011 can be found in this section too.)
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Margaret
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Post by Margaret » Wed March 2nd, 2011, 10:42 pm

Thanks for the interesting background, Undine. So much could have been done with the celibacy-or-not question in this novel that would have been more interesting to me. There are a few people who just don't like sex for biological or psychological reasons, and if Poe was one of them, he might well have been drawn to a wife still almost more of a child than a woman, and he might well not have slept with her during the early years of their marriage. Don't his poems reflect a rather idealized and nonphysical attitude toward women? It's been a long time since I read them - maybe some of you have a better perspective on this than I do. In any case, it's hard for me to believe that if both Viriginia and Eddy really wanted to have sex, Muddy's restriction alone would have stopped them. It's such a powerful drive. Girls in their early teens are not as fertile as older girls, so the fact that they didn't have children doesn't seem particularly strong evidence for a celibate marriage. Also, they were so poor, she may not have been getting enough to eat to support her fertility.

"Muddy" must be derived from the German "Mutti." Klemm sounds like a German name to me. I'm assuming Hart found some reference in her research to Viriginia using this name for her mother, but it does sound very odd in English, so I was a little surprised nothing at all was made of their German background to help the reader understand why the children called their mother "Muddy." It wouldn't be pronounced with a short "u" as in our word "mud," but to rhyme with "woody." If I hadn't studied a bit of German, this term would have really thrown me for a loop.
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Undine
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Post by Undine » Wed March 2nd, 2011, 11:37 pm

[quote=""Margaret""]Don't his poems reflect a rather idealized and nonphysical attitude toward women? [/quote]

Yes, they certainly do, although my favorite passage in his works to reflect this sentiment comes at the close of a lecture he gave in 1848 and 1849 called "The Poetic Principle." It's too long to quote here, but it's worth looking up for anyone who wants to understand the true Poe. Many people who knew him stated that as well. And it's a curious fact that outside of his marriage, there is no evidence that he ever slept with anyone. I question whether--as so many of his biographers state so dogmatically--he was physically or psychologically unable to have relations, but I am convinced such things simply weren't a priority with him. His interests were intellectual and spiritual, not physical. (With the possible exception of his marriage, as I am also convinced Virginia was the only woman who was ever truly important to him romantically.)

It's a pity Hart ignored this esoteric side of Poe, and made him seem like just another boring maladjusted drunk, but I suppose I can't complain too heavily. For all their faults, "Raven's Bride," and its obvious (very obvious) ancestor, "The Very Young Mrs. Poe," are, believe it or not, by far the best biographical Poe novels out there. All the rest range from mildly offensive to truly godawful.

As for "Muddy"--I had assumed the Clemms, like the Poes (the two families were interrelated) were Irish, but I see that's probably wrong. This possible German connection to the name fascinates me--it does not appear to have occurred to any of his biographers. (Incidentally, there has long been a hot debate among Poe scholars whether Poe knew German or not!) We don't know how Mrs. Clemm got her nickname. We also don't know how Virginia got hers, but I've yet to find any evidence that anyone (including her mother) except Edgar called her "Sissy." I don't think anyone except Mrs. Clemm even knew of the pet name, as he apparently also addressed her as such only in private, which makes all these books that insist on calling Virginia almost nothing but "Sissy" throughout vaguely annoying to me. It comes off as an impertinence.

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Post by Divia » Thu March 3rd, 2011, 12:31 am

I think people are too uncomfortable with Poe being a sexual man who would have relations with his younger cousin that the author decided to use the lame excuse of mom said "no." I mean seriously? Thats one of the things that annoyed me with the book. I thought the author could have taken a stronger stand on the issue.
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Margaret
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Post by Margaret » Thu March 3rd, 2011, 2:25 am

It's a pity Hart ignored this esoteric side of Poe, and made him seem like just another boring maladjusted drunk, but I suppose I can't complain too heavily. For all their faults, "Raven's Bride," and its obvious (very obvious) ancestor, "The Very Young Mrs. Poe," are, believe it or not, by far the best biographical Poe novels out there. All the rest range from mildly offensive to truly godawful.
This is a good point. I haven't read any other novels about Poe, so have nothing to compare it to. I do think that authors don't necessarily make the best subjects for fiction - their lives tend to be more ordinary than their work, because they live so much in their imaginations.
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Post by Undine » Fri March 4th, 2011, 12:45 pm

Irony alert: Considering the complaints earlier in this thread about how there was so little of Poe himself in this book, I found an interview with Lenore Hart that I recently read darkly amusing. She claimed that in her earlier drafts of RB, she did have much more material about him, but her editor urged her to take most of it out and concentrate more on Virginia, even if she had to "get creative"--i.e., "make stuff up."

If this is true, that editor deserves to be fired on the spot.

Oh, and that scene in RB where Poe and Virginia go on a boating trip? Hart admitted that the scene was based on one of Poe's essays, but that she included Virginia in the expedition just to keep the novel's focus on her.

No, she did not add Virginia to the scene--Cothburn O'Neal did. This was one of the episodes in "Raven's Bride" that was a virtual cut-and-paste job from "The Very Young Mrs. Poe." Even some of the same lines of dialogue appear in both novels. Sheesh.
Last edited by Undine on Fri March 4th, 2011, 1:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Postscript.

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Margaret
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Interest in HF: I can't answer this in 100 characters. Sorry.
Favourite HF book: Checkmate, the final novel in the Lymond series
Preferred HF: Literary novels. Late medieval and Renaissance.
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Contact:

Post by Margaret » Fri March 4th, 2011, 9:18 pm

Irony alert: Considering the complaints earlier in this thread about how there was so little of Poe himself in this book, I found an interview with Lenore Hart that I recently read darkly amusing. She claimed that in her earlier drafts of RB, she did have much more material about him, but her editor urged her to take most of it out and concentrate more on Virginia, even if she had to "get creative"--i.e., "make stuff up."
Unfortunately, this is all too easy for me to believe. I've heard too many similar stories. What we don't know is what the draft was like before she took her publisher's advice. Maybe her scenes about Poe weren't that great.
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Post by Divia » Sat March 5th, 2011, 12:44 am

Well, the story was about her and not about him. So I can see why the editor told the author to considerate on Virginia.

Frankly, I didn't miss anything by Poe not being in there stealing the scene on every page. If he had been in the book more it would have shifted its focus and Virginia would have been in a corner bent over her needlework.
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Undine
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Post by Undine » Sat March 5th, 2011, 1:33 pm

My guess is that Hart faced quite a dilemma when she was writing this book. Although I believe Virginia was an interesting personality in her own right, the fact is that she simply didn't have a very exciting life. (Actually, neither did Poe, but at least he had a career.) Hart's choice was to either have some sort of plot and action going on--in which case you'd have to make Edgar at least a co-lead character--or focus strictly on Virginia, and wind up with a novel centered around music lessons and consumption.

Now that I think of it, the fact that no one has ever come up with a really good novel about Poe isn't too surprising.

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LoveHistory
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Post by LoveHistory » Sat March 5th, 2011, 2:48 pm

Edgar Allen Poe: Vampire would probably sell well.

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Undine
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Post by Undine » Sat March 5th, 2011, 3:29 pm

[quote=""LoveHistory""]Edgar Allen Poe: Vampire would probably sell well.[/quote]

Ask, and ye shall receive: A few years back, a writer named Bill Crider published a short story entitled "But I See the Bright Eyes..." which is built around that very premise.

Believe it or not, it's pretty good.

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