Next Up - The Third Window

The Third Window
by Anne Douglas Sedgwick
Houghton Mifflin Company
The Riverside Press
Cambridge 1920

This novel came up in a Google Books search for ghost stories. It has been called a psychological novel, compared to the work of Henry James. An advertisement in Publishers Weekly states: "In this novel, the pervasive sense, sweeping the world to-day, that the dead may not be dead, is transmuted into a masterpiece of fiction."

This is next up on my reading list.

Bookmark - Mrs Henry Wood

Mrs. Henry Wood

The Lamp of Psyche by Edith Wharton

The title of the story refers to a lamp given to Psyche by Venus by which Psyche is able to learn the identity of her lover. In Edith Wharton's story, "The Lamp of Psyche" Delia Corbett has married Laurence Corbett and is in the full flush of love at the beginning of the story. Delia and Laurence live in Paris. They take a trip to Boston to visit Delia's Aunt Mary.

The story takes place in the year 1891. We learn that Laurence is 52 years old, meaning he would have been born in 1839. Aunt Mary asks Delia what Laurence did during the war, the American Civil War, that is. Delia realizes she does not know. When Delia finally puts the question to Laurence, his answer forever alters her view of him.

This is a fascinating story for those of us who are interested in the American Civil War and its effect on women left at home. In this story, Delia had not even wondered what Laurence had done in the war, so long ago had it been, until Aunt Mary raises the question. I was struck by the thought that had Delia been from the South, rather than from Boston, her memory of the war would not have been so easily set aside.

Mrs. Henry Wood

A couple of weeks ago I started looking at the novels and stories written by Mrs. Henry Wood. This was after I read that Tolstoy had enjoyed her work and had noted that he was reading and enjoying Within the Maze. Yesterday I read one of her ghost stories, Fred Temple's Warning, one of her Johnny Ludlow tales. She seems to have been a very interesting person, and I am surprised that the only biography I have found is the one written by her son, Charles Wood, Memorials of Mrs. Henry Wood, published in 1897. Perhaps her prodigious output has been discouraging to would-be biographers. From what I've read of her work I would say that although she is not on the same level as the great Victorian novelists, her work is good and would be enjoyable to readers who are looking to widen their Victorian novel reading horizons.

Reading today - Edith Wharton

Today I have been reading Edith Wharton stories. I just finished "The Fulness of Life", a story of eternal love. It has been designated a ghost story, and technically that is correct. However, the theme of eternal love is what resonated with me.

Now on to "The Lamp of Psyche".

Review: God and Man According to Tolstoy

God and Man According to Tolstoy
by Alexander Boot
Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2009
ISBN 13: 978-0-230-61586-1
ISBN 10: 0-230-61586-4

The good: Draws attention to the debate over Tolstoy's mental and physical health.

The bad: Lack of documentation; use of inflammatory language; very small print; the price of the book.

Leo Tolstoy is an icon in world literature. Countless biographies and essays have been written about him, although neutrality and objectivity have eluded many of the authors of those works. It would seem that Tolstoy is one of those persons who inspires either great devotion and veneration or great revulsion and denigration.

Alexander Boot's book, God and Man According to Tolstoy, falls into the latter category.

An important part of this book, and to my mind its chief value, is that it brings attention to the debate over Tolstoy's mental and physical health. This debate, beginning in the 19th century before Tolstoy's death, ranged from what Mr. Boot says today would be called severe personality disorder and/or narcissistic personality disorder; to discussions of whether Tolstoy suffered from epilepsy.

Mr. Boot reports that Tolstoy has been diagnosed with epilepsy. He seems to be relying heavily on a report written in 1930 by a Russian psychiatrist named Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Yevlakhov entitled Konstitutsionalnye osobennosti psikhiki L. N. Tolstogo. And herein lies one of the major shortcomings of Mr. Boot's book: it is sadly lacking in documentation. While there are some endnotes, they are most often merely explanatory rather than citing sources of the information he reports. Yevlakhov is said to have analyzed thousands of pages written by and about Tolstoy, resulting in his diagnosing Tolstoy as suffering from epilepsy. This implies that Yevlakhov did not meet with Tolstoy personally.

Epilepsy is sometimes accompanied by psychiatric disorders such as depression and anxiety, and Mr. Boot cites this as supporting the view that Tolstoy was epileptic It is undeniable that Tolstoy was subject to depression, as evidenced in his diaries and letters, as well as observations recorded by family and friends.

A list in God and Man According to Tolstoy which purports to show that Tolstoy had an inherited predisposition to mental illness contains at least one serious error: Tolstoy had only one sister, not two as the list states; and other items on this list are questionable. Whether this list comes from Yevlakhov, or from some other source, or was compiled by Mr. Boot himself is unclear.

The question of whether Tolstoy suffered from epilepsy was also addressed by John R. Hughes of the Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago in his 2004 study entitled "Did all those famous people really have epilepsy?" Dr. Hughes concludes that Tolstoy was not epileptic, that the seizures suffered by Tolstoy as he was dying "were very likely reactive attacks, associated with a very high fever, rather than a manifestation of epilepsy with its spontaneous seizures." On the issue of whether Tolstoy was epileptic, I put more credence in Dr. Hughes' views than in Yevlakhov's as reported in God and Man According to Tolstoy.

Did Tolstoy suffer from a personality disorder? This book does not convince me that he did.

God and Man According to Tolstoy

God and Man According to Tolstoy
by Alexander Boot
Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2009
ISBN 13: 978-0-230-61586-1
ISBN 10: 0-230-61586-4

In today's mail I received a review copy of God and Man According to Tolstoy which I had requested from the publisher in connection with my research into the issue of whether Tolstoy suffered from any form of epilepsy.

I will now begin reading, and a review will be forthcoming shortly.