Pinning this for notes as I read through this #LibraryOfAmerica collection of Constance Fenimore Woolson's stories.
Pinning this for notes as I read through this #LibraryOfAmerica collection of Constance Fenimore Woolson's stories.
Took this volume of #ConstanceFenimoreWoolson back out on a whim. I had really enjoyed the selections from *Castle Nowhere*, which was mostly set around the Great Lakes, but had trouble getting into the next set of stories set in the South (from *Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches*).
Anyhow, decided to give it another go. The first two stories, the title story and "Sister St. Luke," fell rather flat to me, although the second was by far the better of the two.
"Sister St Luke" was much more interesting. Two men - travelers? adventurers? where do they get their money? - stop at an island and befriend the lighthouse keeper, his wife, and a nun from a nearby convent that is staying with them for a while.
The premise is really weird, and the conditions that led to this encounter are unclear, but the men spend time exploring the small island and, at the same time, getting to know the nun, who is young and quite timid.
(The story has some strong resemblance to aspects of her "St Clair Flats")
The relationship between the parties is what is most interesting, and there are differences of culture and religion that are centered here. Woolson sets a lot of the story around a sort of exaggerated Catholic mystery: the nun, whose world is the convent and the men take for being rather dull and of limited mind, ultimately saves the men in a storm.
(This act leads the lighthouse keeper's very Protestant wife to begin attending a local mission weekly.)
Anyhow, this has nowhere near the mystery and beauty of St Clair Flats or some of the stories from that earlier volume, but it does show off Woolson's interest in defined subcultures, or in moments of cultural/religious difference.
That's what stood out to me from my reading of her earlier, and I hope one or stories from this collection do that interest a bit more justice.
Two more quick notes:
1) Woolson's women characters are often markedly independent but in subtle ways. In Sister St Luke, the lighthouse keeper's wife, Melvyna, effectively keeps her maiden name w/o formally keeping it, and has a strong identity apart from her husband that ties her back to her (New England?) roots.
2) There is a recognition of the southern east coast's long history in Sister St Luke, with references to territory being passed from the Spanish to the English and finally the U.S. Yet there is a brief allusion to indigenous history, in describing a trail "made by the fierce Creeks three centuries before." I've become lowkey fascinated by this period's fictional treatments of indigenous history, where they are aware of it, acknowledge it, but often write around it. Logging this here to come back to later, maybe.
Two more quick notes:
1) Woolson's women characters are often markedly independent but in subtle ways. In Sister St Luke, the lighthouse keeper's wife, Melvyna, effectively keeps her maiden name w/o formally keeping it, and has a strong identity apart from her husband that ties her back to her (New England?) roots.
2) There is a recognition of the southern east coast's long history in Sister St Luke, with references to territory being passed from the Spanish to the English and finally the U.S. Yet there is a brief allusion to indigenous history, in describing a trail "made by the fierce Creeks three centuries before." I've become lowkey fascinated by this period's fictional treatments of indigenous history, where they are aware of it, acknowledge it, but often write around it. Logging this here to come back to later, maybe.
