Wild Nights --Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild nights should be
our luxury!
Futile-the winds--
To a Heart in port--
Done with the Compass--
Done with the Chart!
Rowing in Eden--
Ah--the Sea!
Might I but moor--tonight--
In thee!
When I saw Amherst by William Nicholson on NetGalley with a ghostly Emily Dickinson hovering over her home on the cover, I requested it.
The novel is about Emily's brother Austin Dickinson and his fifteen-year relationship with Mabel Loomis Todd. They were both married. I was quite ignorant about Austin and Mabel...but Emily was on the cover! She had to figure into the novel somewhere.
I was uncomfortable with the kinky aspect of Mabel and Austin's affair conducted with the consent of Mabel's husband David. I really didn't want to go into it. Why did I request this book? It was creepy.
Nicholson puts forward that Mabel and her husband David advocated an open marriage because people can love more than one person and it won't affect a marriage where there is love and affection. I am no spring chicken, I remember the open marriage, free sex 1960s-70s. Today's young people 'hook up', sex without strings. But I really didn't want to know the details disclosed in Mabel's diary concerning how she merged two lovers into her life. Even if she was responsible for getting Emily's poems into print. I wanted to like Alice, but ended up ambiguous about her. And Nick was such a handsome hunk of loser.
In contemporary times Alice Dickinson struggles with how those 19th c lovers sustained a passion for fifteen years. They believed their love was pure, justified, and consecrated, that they were ordained for each other. Alice and her lover Nick debate the issue, bringing their own experiences and failures, into the discussion. Alice wants to believe in true love, kindred spirits, and a perfect match made in heaven. Nick is a pessimist who lives in the moment and conducts short term affairs.
Did Austin and Mabel sustain their affair for so long because they were true soulmates, or was it the danger and sneaking around that made it so exciting? Do we delude ourselves into false beliefs to justify what we want? Does requited love resolve loneliness? Does gratification result in boredom or completion? Is the chase what is exciting? Do we have only one chance of getting it right? Do we only want what others want?
And what do we want? It seems that we want Darcy. Jane Austen heroes and heroines have become cultural icons. Lizzy and Darcy are to swoon for. Like Alice, we still want the fairy tale princes. Experience be damned. Hope springs eternal.
My thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing the ebook for a fair and unbiased review.
Amherst: A Novel
by William Nicholson
Simon & Schuster
Publication February 10, 2015
$26 hardbound
ISBN: 9781476740409
I cannot live with You –
It would be Life –
And Life is over there –
Behind the Shelf
The Sexton keeps the Key to –
Putting up
Our Life – His Porcelain –
Like a Cup –
Discarded of the Housewife –
Quaint – or Broke –
A newer Sevres pleases –
Old Ones crack –
I could not die – with You –
For One must wait
To shut the Other’s Gaze down –
You – could not –
And I – could I stand by
And see You – freeze –
Without my Right of Frost –
Death’s privilege?
Nor could I rise – with You –
Because Your Face
Would put out Jesus’ –
That New Grace
Glow plain – and foreign
On my homesick Eye –
Except that You than He
Shone closer by –
They’d judge Us – How –
For You – served Heaven – You know,
Or sought to –
I could not –
Because You saturated Sight –
And I had no more Eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise
And were You lost, I would be –
Though My Name
Rang loudest
On the Heavenly fame –
And were You – saved –
And I – condemned to be
Where You were not –
That self – were Hell to Me –
So We must meet apart –
You there – I – here –
With just the Door ajar
That Oceans are – and Prayer –
And that White Sustenance –
Despair –
by Emily Dickinson
