Ron Gilmour

Behind my apartment there is a wooded area in which I frequently observe wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo). Most of the time, their activity is unremarkable. I just see them hurrying back on forth on their little turkey errands, presumably foraging for bugs and acorns. In the fall, I watched them attack a small crab apple tree. This was kind of funny as it involved the turkeys flying up into the diminutive tree, grasping one of its branches for as long as they could while grabbing a few apples, and then falling back down when the branch refused to support them. My turkeys are a quiet bunch for the most part, only occasionally making sort of honking sounds. This had caused me some anxiety as I distinctly recall a lesson from my youth in which I learned that turkeys go “gobble gobble.”

This morning, I was reading when I heard a sound like a dozen grocery carts being pushed across a parking lot really fast. I went to the window and witnessed my first displaying male turkey. He was enormous, puffed up, and with his tail spread just like in all those Thanksgiving decorations I remember from grade school classrooms. (Remember when you made a hand print with paint and then decorated it like a turkey? Fun times!) Apparently he was the source of the shopping cart noise, which I suppose could be described as a “gobble.” He was surrounded by maybe eight to ten other turkeys of indeterminate sex. The other turkeys seemed pretty agitated. I figure either they were females who were hoping to get lucky or they were males who were irate because this tom was jumping the gun and doing his love dance in February. (“Dude, you can’t DO that!”)

A little web research revealed a bit about the wild turkey’s habits and sexual politics. It seems that most of the year, turkeys hang out in single sex groups and these groups only come together in the mating season. I’ve been unsuccessful in finding any very detailed data on when mating season normally starts in the northeast, but one website lists it as “March or early April.” The behavior of the tom that I saw this morning seems strange, especially given that it’s in the low 20s outside and there’s snow on the ground. It just doesn’t feel like a day made for turkey love.

The bad news is that the flock of turkeys went over a small ridge to continue their negotiations in private, so I don’t know if the tom’s bid for a winter mating was successful. I am very excited about spring coming and hopefully I will have more turkey tales to tell as the year progresses.

I actually finished this Ian McEwan novel a couple weeks ago and have been putting off writing about it because I’m just not sure what to say. When writing about Trollope novels there is always so much material. I can get many words out of a bare bones plot summary, then pick out a couple themes to bring out and have a respectable post. I’m going to have to find something else to do with Enduring Love.

It’s a short novel and the plot can be summed up in a few sentences. Joe Rose and his girlfriend Clarissa witness a terrible ballooning accident in which Joe attempts to help. One of the other would-be rescuers is Jed Parry. Following the accident, Joe and Jed share a brief interchange. Apparently, during these few words, Jed falls hopelessly in love with Joe. Sort of.

The remainder of the novel is the playing out of Jed’s obsession with Joe. For some time, McEwan keeps us in suspense as to whether this is real or not. Clarissa (and, I think, most readers) begin to suspect that Jed and his stalkerish behavior may be a figment of Joe’s imagination. Joe seems suspiciously obsessed with Jed’s obsession and there are no independent witnesses to Jed’s overtures. This leads to a near total break between Joe and Clarissa.

As it turns out, Jed is entirely real and is afflicted with something called de Clerambault’s syndrome, a condition in which the sufferer (if, indeed, he suffers) is convinced that a particular person (usually one with higher social standing) is infatuated with him. The slightest gestures of the desired will be interpreted by the de Clerambault’s patient as evidence of undying affection. Inevitably, Jed becomes violent and is committed to an asylum. The book ends with a letter written by Jed to Joe, showing that he is still convinced that they are destined to be together.

The title, “enduring love,” seems mercilessly cynical. Are we to infer that the only truly enduring love is pathological? The relationship between Clarissa and Joe goes through ups and downs and at one point seems to shatter entirely, though they are eventually reconciled. The relationship between Joe and Jeb, on the other hand, is unchanging and unchangeable. At one point Joe theorizes that even if he accepted Jeb’s view of reality, it wouldn’t really change anything.

Jeb has one distinguishing characteristic that sets him apart from the average de Clerambault’s patient. In addition to his obsession with Joe, he has an intense religious devotion. He speaks continually of God’s will and sees himself as being charged with saving Joe from the dangers of scientific secularism. Should we assume that McEwan views a belief in God as pathological? It is interesting that while McEwan gives us a healthy case of love in Joe’s relationship with Clarissa, he shows us no instance of healthy spirituality. The only God in the novel is the one in Jeb’s head.

It almost goes without saying that the novel is beautifully written. McEwan is in top form and very much in his element with the overall creepiness of the story. He keeps us in suspense from the very beginning. The novel opens with this passage:

The beginning is simple to mark. We were in sunlight under a turkey oak, partly protected from a strong, gusty wind. I was kneeling on the grass with a corkscrew in my hand, and Clarissa was passing me the bottle—a 1987 Daumas Gassac. This was the moment, this was the pinprick on the time map: I was stretching out my hand, and as the cool neck and the black foil touched my palm, we heard a man’s shout.

From these few innocent sentences, the reader knows that something terrible is about to happen, and McEwan takes his time letting us in on the secret and then stunning us with harsh reality of a man falling to his death. This pattern continues in the main storyline, with the danger posed by Jeb gradually growing. Still, we feel that we know him and what he is capable of. Then he has a knife at Clarissa’s throat. McEwan is a master at playing with our expectations and the effect is fascinating.

The novel ends in as happy a way as it could, with Joe and Clarissa reunited and with Jeb receiving the psychiatric care that he needs, but one is still left with a bad taste. It’s a bleak novel, questioning not only the value of religion, but also the de facto modern religion of romantic love.

Ever since encountering the fearsome Mrs. Hurtle in The Way We Live Now, I have had a special affection for Trollope’s “bad girl” characters. Of course I haven’t read everything by Trollope, but I find it hard to imagine anyone worse than Lizzie Eustace, the perverse anti-heroine whose self-serving schemes drive the plot of The Eustace Diamonds.

At the time of the novel, Lizzie has just been widowed by the late Sir Florian Eustace. Sir Florian left her with a large estate, a young son, and a bevy of in-laws who hate her. He has also left her, or so Lizzie avers, an extremely valuable diamond necklace. The Eustace clan believe the necklace to be an heirloom and therefor not something that Sir Florian could leave outside the family. The family lawyer, Mr. Camperdown, is charged with getting the diamonds back from Lizzie and takes his task very much to heart.

As the battle about the diamonds rages on between Lizzie and Mr. Camperdown, Lizzie feels the need to marry again to secure for herself a champion in her troubles. She becomes engaged to the very boring Lord Fawn, but he breaks things off on first hearing that she is in possession of the questionable diamonds. Seeing no possibility of protection from Lord Fawn, Lizzie turns to her cousin Frank Greystock. Frank seems to generally like her (and, more remarkable still, seems to actually believe her), but is engaged already to the poor governess of Lady Fawn’s daughters.

The third possibility for Lizzie’s champion is Lord George de Bruce Carruthers, an adventurer of uncertain ties who appeals to Lizzie’s desire to align herself with a heroic “corsair.” Lord George is an unpredictable character who seems to run hot and cold in his regard for Lizzie. His terse remonstrances made me think that if there were a movie adaptation, he should be played by Cary Grant. Eventually, Lizzie’s penchant for subterfuge seem to frighten Lord George away, leaving Lizzie to finally accept a proposal from a rather slimy Jewish minister (somewhat reminiscent of Mr. Slope of Barchester Towers).

While on a trip with Lord George and some other disreputable companions, the safe box in which Lizzie stores her diamonds is stolen from her hotel room. Having suspected that they may not be safe in the box, Lizzie has hidden the diamonds under her pillow, but allows the authorities and all her friends (as well as Mr. Camperdown) to believe that they have actually been stolen. Eventually she confesses her lie to Lord George, who is regarded by many as the probable thief. The false robbery is followed a short time later by a real one, in which Lizzie’s desk is searched and the diamonds are actually taken. Lizzie continues to perjure herself by not reporting the diamonds as among the items stolen.

Strangely, the robberies seem to increase the public regard for Lizzie, causing people to see her as a victim. Even Lady Glencora Palliser takes her up as a cause. Finally, of course, the truth is known, and Lizzie is made to testify to her lies by Major Mackintosh of the police force. So ends her career in London society as she runs off to Scotland and her marriage to the minister.

While clearly the book is mostly about Lizzie, Frank Greystock is a very significant character. Repeating a frequent theme in Trollope, Frank has to choose between love (for the governess Lucy Morris) and money (in the form of the vixen Lizzie). While he eventually does the right thing by honoring his engagement to Lucy, he spends a great deal of the novel in the role of Lizzie’s confidant/champion/lover. It seems that men in Trollope are not given to strict constancy in their affections. Even Johnny Eames of The Small House at Allington, who is certainly a model of persistence, is not quite perfect in his consistency. Trollope interrupts his story with an entire chapter dedicated to elucidating his feelings about the not-quite-heroic behavior of his hero, Frank. He appeals to the reality of good and evil coexisting in human beings:

Our own friends around us are not always merry and wise, nor, alas, always honest and true. They are often cross and foolish, and sometimes treacherous and false. They are so, and we are angry. Then we forgive them, not without a consciousness of imperfection on our own part. And we know, or at least believe, that though they be sometimes treacherous and false, there is a balance of good. We cannot have heroes to dine with us. There are none. And were these heroes to be had, we should not like them. But neither are our friends villains, whose every aspiration is for evil, and whose every moment is a struggle for some achievement worthy of the devil. The persons whom you cannot care for in a novel because they are so bad, are the very same that you so dearly love in life because they are so good.

I know that critics of Trollope abhor his direct addresses to his readers and his commentary upon the story at hand, but I find many of these asides delightful in that they offer a glimpse of the aesthetic ideals of the novelist. Trollope asserts that he does not want to give us an idealized King Arthur, but rather “a true picture of life as it is … show[ing] men what they are and how they might rise, not indeed to perfection, but one step first, and then another, on the ladder.” And so does Frank Greystock rise, marrying Lucy Morris in the end.

Not surprisingly, The Eustace Diamonds has the charm and the realism that we expect from Trollope. It does not, however, succeed very well if we regard it as an early example of “crime fiction.” To begin with, the novel altogether lacks a heroic detective. The various police characters are rather non-descript and get very little stage time. Major Mackintosh makes a very brief appearance and is certainly no Sherlock Holmes, nor even a Mr. Bucket. Furthermore, we are never in much doubt as to the disposition of the diamonds or the identities of the guilty parties. In one of his infamous asides in Barchester Towers, Trollope tells us that he dislikes keeping secrets from his readers and this tendency means that he was doomed to failure in the mystery genre. Still, while not a great mystery, this novel is great fun and I enjoyed it more than either of the two previous Palliser novels.