Classics Read Aloud – Détails, épisodes et analyse

The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry

“And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house...Everywhere they are the wisest. They are the magi.”

Humans are complex beings. We contain multitudes, as Walt Whitman wisely said; some, indeed, more than others.

O. Henry was born William Sydney Porter in September of 1862. His pen name is a familiar one to this day, attributable to his enviable flourish with the pen and imagination. But it is, ironically, because his real name was so well-known that he adopted the pseudonym in the first place.

In 1894, Porter launched The Rolling Stone, a weekly humor publication that gained robust public interest, circulating to nearly 10% of residents in its hometown of Austin, Texas. Publishing turned out to be too tough a business, and The Rolling Stone was shuttered after only a year in print.

Meanwhile, Porter made ends meet by working as a teller at the First National Bank of Austin. Far from developing a hum-drum career there, Porter was arrested in February of 1896 for embezzlement. It is reported that this was perhaps the result of some technical error; however, Porter foolishly fled the state, eventually ending up in Honduras. Compelled to return to the US to support his wife during a terminal illness, he was arrested, convicted, and spent 3 years in an Ohio jail.

Suffice it to say, “imprisoned for fraud” doesn’t serve as a winning backdrop for an author publishing stories as sweetly sentimental as “The Gift of the Magi.” And thus, O. Henry was born (in jail, no less!).

This jail baby made great use of his grey matter, churning out volumes of entertaining short stories. It turns out that Porter possessed one of the most valuable tools for any author: an unending fascination with people. “The Gift of the Magi” was first published in 1905 in The New York Sunday World, and was later included in his 1906 collection Four Million Stories. Why four million? That was the population of New York at the time, where Porter whiled away his days writing and drinking at the long, rosewood bar of Healy’s Café, perched at the corner of East 18th Street and Irving Place. He believed each one of those New Yorkers carried a story worth telling.

Today’s reading, the story of a young married couple struggling to demonstrate their adoration at Christmas despite their meager means, is one such worthy glimpse. It has become one of the most beloved tales of the Christmas season.

Please enjoy…

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"Quality" by John Galsworthy

“Then, placing my foot on a piece of paper, he would two or three times tickle the outer edges with a pencil and pass his nervous fingers over my toes, feeling himself into the heart of my requirements.”

One hesitates to draw too many conclusions about the personality of an author based solely on his or her written work. That said, I was hardly surprised in my research to find John Galsworthy described as a quiet intellectual, somewhat aloof and reserved. It seemed to me only natural that someone inclined to introspection would write a story like “Quality,” which patiently burrows into the modest but artful industriousness of a cobbler’s shop, like a mouse burrowing into the toe of a shoe.

John Galsworthy began writing in the 1890s after meeting Joseph Conrad, with whom he developed a long and mutually supportive friendship. Having been in the midst of a budding legal career, this allowed him to continue working pen-to-paper and simply alter the objective of the output. He nonetheless wrote under a pseudonym initially—John Sinjohn—to avoid disappointing his family with the shift. By 1904, Galsworthy was writing under his own name and in 1906 published The Man of Property, the first book of what became the renowned The Forsyte Saga series, later popularized with a BBC episodic in 1967 (and more recently with the excellent remake starring Damien Lewis in 2002).

Much of Galsworthy’s work circulates around the struggle between the individual and society during a period of rapid industrial upheaval. In “Quality,” originally presented as a play and subsequently published as a short story, we are exposed to the effect of this change on the business of a high-end bootmaker, through the eyes of a lifelong customer. The plight of the hard-working Gessler brothers asks the reader to acknowledge the hypocrisy and trade-offs inherent in “progress.” Galsworthy doesn’t bemoan the progress, per se, simply the associated casualty of quality and the respect its craftspeople once commanded.

Please enjoy…

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“The night grew darker and darker; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal.”

When Washington Irving published “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” he cleverly chose a well-known British publisher, John Murray, despite being an American himself. This credentialing, paired with the captivating nature of the tale, helped skyrocket both Irving’s popularity and the reputation of American writing more broadly. The story was quickly picked up by broad audiences of all ages and never went out of print.

Now imagine being the fellow named Ichabod Crane, in real life, while all this breathless storytelling of a gangly, lovelorn schoolmaster by that very name was gaining traction on both sides of the Atlantic.

Such a fellow existed! He and Irving met while Crane was stationed at Fort Pike during the War of 1812. It seems that Irving borrowed only the man’s fantastic name for the tale and not his personality or physical traits, but the real Mr. Crane was apparently none too pleased all the same.

Irving stitched together colorful details from all over in patching together this charmingly frightful tale. From elements of Dutch folklore, plotlines from friend Sir Walter Scott’s “The Chase,” which itself was based on a translation of the German poem “The Wild Huntsman,” to historical happenings of the Hudson Valley region, and the very character of Ichabod Crane, who was modeled after a Kinderhook schoolmaster named Jesse Merwin, whom he met while visiting the area in 1809.

Mr. Merwin reportedly did not mind the association.

Please enjoy…

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The Turn of the Screw, Part 2, Henry James

Henry James was raised as a member of the American elite—shuttling between the New and the Old Continent—under the watchful attention, customary to the time, of governesses and household staff. How titillating it must have been to reflect these attentions back in devising a plot for “The Turn of the Screw.” This renowned ghost story unfolds on the grounds of a refined English estate, home to two orphaned children. Here, James pushes the question of sanity onto their governess, and the question of propriety onto two prior members of the estate’s staff, both since deceased under suspicious circumstances, and the question of collusion onto the young wards.

How deliciously twisted.

So quietly terrifying is this tale that James, rather marvelously, scared even himself in its preparation, telling poet Edmund Gosse, “I had to correct the proofs of my ghost story last night, and when I had finished them I was so frightened that I was afraid to go upstairs to bed!”

It is quite a feat, frankly, that James was able to develop such an authentic scare given that he rather regretted having to write it. Despite his well-heeled upbringing, the author found himself in financial straits. To solve for this, he lowered himself to taking on serialized magazine work, acknowledging his pained reluctance in a letter to friend William Dean Howells:

All thanks for your appreciation, & your wife’s, of my Literature drivel. I have succumbed, in that matter, purely to the pecuniary argument, backing H. Harper’s earnest approach. It means £40 a month, which I simply couldn’t afford not to accept. But I am too out of it all, & too ignorant. Perhaps, indeed, that helps & is a merit. You’re delightful about the T. of the Screw-the most abject, down-on-all-fours pot-boiler, pure & simple, that a proud man brought low ever perpetrated. He will do it again & again, too, even for the same scant fee: it’s only a question of a chance!

Drivel! History certainly doesn’t think so. “T. of the Screw,” as he called it, became one of those stories that refused to fade away, largely because its many ambiguities prompt continued intrigue and interrogation, and James eventually came to appreciate it as a valid pillar of his catalog.

Please enjoy…

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The Turn of the Screw, Part 1 , by Henry James

Henry James was raised as a member of the American elite—shuttling between the New and the Old Continent—under the watchful attention, customary to the time, of governesses and household staff. How titillating it must have been to reflect these attentions back in devising a plot for “The Turn of the Screw.” This renowned ghost story unfolds on the grounds of a refined English estate, home to two orphaned children. Here, James pushes the question of sanity onto their governess, and the question of propriety onto two prior members of the estate’s staff, both since deceased under suspicious circumstances, and the question of collusion onto the young wards.

How deliciously twisted.

So quietly terrifying is this tale that James, rather marvelously, scared even himself in its preparation, telling poet Edmund Gosse, “I had to correct the proofs of my ghost story last night, and when I had finished them I was so frightened that I was afraid to go upstairs to bed!”

It is quite a feat, frankly, that James was able to develop such an authentic scare given that he rather regretted having to write it. Despite his well-heeled upbringing, the author found himself in financial straits. To solve for this, he lowered himself to taking on serialized magazine work, acknowledging his pained reluctance in a letter to friend William Dean Howells:

All thanks for your appreciation, & your wife’s, of my Literature drivel. I have succumbed, in that matter, purely to the pecuniary argument, backing H. Harper’s earnest approach. It means £40 a month, which I simply couldn’t afford not to accept. But I am too out of it all, & too ignorant. Perhaps, indeed, that helps & is a merit. You’re delightful about the T. of the Screw-the most abject, down-on-all-fours pot-boiler, pure & simple, that a proud man brought low ever perpetrated. He will do it again & again, too, even for the same scant fee: it’s only a question of a chance!

Drivel! History certainly doesn’t think so. “T. of the Screw,” as he called it, became one of those stories that refused to fade away, largely because its many ambiguities prompt continued intrigue and interrogation, and James eventually came to appreciate it as a valid pillar of his catalog.

Please enjoy…

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The Shadows on the Wall by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, 1903

Mary Wilkins Freeman was the grande dame of writers, recording “quiet” New England life at the turn of the twentieth century. As the first recipient of the William Dean Howells Gold Medal for Distinguished Work in Fiction and one of the first women to receive membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters, it is a shame she isn’t better remembered! Hard to compete with Mark Twain, I suppose.

Alas, she was prodigious, and her work is widely available on Gutenberg for those who care to find it. Or, you can simply rely on me to bring you some highlights of her oeuvre, including this outstanding, well-paced ghost story, “The Shadows on the Wall.”

In this narrative, we are privy to the private conversations and evening life of the Glynn siblings, who are mourning and puzzling over the sudden death of their brother, Edward. I will brook no spoilers, but will instead stay mirthful in the knowledge that many of you will experience an “ah ha” moment when it dawns on you that the biggest spoiler is hiding in plain sight!

Please enjoy…

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The Fall of the House of Usher, by Edgar Allan Poe

Outside of his writing, Edgar Allan Poe led a rather unremarkable life. It was an existence that would give any mother cause for concern. Not his, for Poe was an orphan.

As a young adult, Poe engaged in indiscriminate gambling, such that his debts forced him to drop out of the University of Virginia. He subsequently enlisted in the army and was then accepted to West Point, where his insubordination led to expulsion. It was at this time that Poe committed himself to life as a writer. A short life it was, for he was discovered unconscious in a Baltimore gutter at the age of 40 and died shortly thereafter.

Poe chased the themes of isolation and despair into his work as well. In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” these motifs are entwined not only with the psychology of the characters—ailing siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher—but also into the setting itself: “the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had at length brought about upon the morale of [Roderick’s] existence.”

Here, the house and its inhabitants are solely confined. All is Usher…and Poe’s ability to fold the reader into a secretive envelope of haunting intrigue is unmatched.

Please enjoy…

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"The Happy Prince" & "The Selfish Giant" by Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde is most often known for his witticisms, which can lead one to assume he moved in an air of lightness. Words like “dazzling,” “frivolous,” and “enchanting” are often bandied about in describing his personality and presence in a room.

And yet, Wilde’s fairy tales are anything but. “The Happy Prince” and “The Selfish Giant” bring dazzling imagery, surely, of glistening gems and flowering trees, but we are led by these attractive scenes into a confrontation with deeper themes. As Neil Philip writes in his introduction to the 2022 edition, “behind the surface glitter of his phrasemaking lay a thinking mind, which used wit as a snare for truth.” Wilde explores humility, longing, and sacrifice in these brief stories in ways understood by children and adults alike.

Please enjoy…

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"The Coup de Grace" by Ambrose Bierce & "Araby" by James Joyce

Suffering is a fact of the human condition. Shaping it has been the basis of many religions, and coming to terms with it the lifeblood of many a writer’s work. This unavoidable state of anguish is, mercifully, both temporary and varied.

In today’s pair of stories, we’ll take a voyeur’s seat to anguish through equally varied eyes: first, through those of a soldier confronted with the brutal injury of a dear friend and sergeant under his command; and second, through those of a teenage boy yearning for recognition and affection in a world he is only just beginning to sort through.

Ambrose Bierce, author of our first story, fought for the Union in the US Civil War. Much of his work flows from that experience, and his writing is characterized by the intensity of the psychological toll extracted on the battlefield. In “The Coup de Grâce,” published in 1889 in the San Francisco Examiner, Bierce reflects on an impossible decision presented to him during the war, leading the story’s Captain Madwell to take action he himself could not. You’ll be left with no question as to why this remains one of Bierce’s most enduring works.

In our second narrative for this reading, James Joyce brings us into the intimate thoughts of someone no longer a boy, and not yet a man. Pulled from The Dubliners, a collection of short stories Joyce wrote to commemorate the phases of Irish life at the turn of the century, “Araby” oozes with pathos and understanding. Completed in 1905, The Dubliners was left unpublished for nine years on the grounds of indecency. Those days are long gone, and readers for generations have been the better for it.

Please enjoy…

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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapters 7-12, by Lewis Carroll

The second half of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is all about wordplay and games. There are misunderstandings, clarifications, and songs galore as we are yanked, just like Alice, from one gaggle of ridiculous characters to the next.

It is curious to me that Carroll chose to conclude the story through the eyes of Alice’s older sister, whom he doesn’t name. Having been riled up in Alice’s dreamscape throughout the book’s entirety, perhaps this is a nicety…a sympathetic way that Carroll excuses us from having to experience Alice’s reconciliation of her adventures into her wakeful reality. We can ponder, as her loving sister does, how Alice may one day “remember her own child life, and the happy summer days.”

Please enjoy…

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