Thoughts on Satire (and Society)

Since my last post I've done quite a lot of bedtime reading.

After I'd finished An Equal Music I decided to read more modern literature. I read Henry James's The Europeans in its entirety, and I started Aldous Huxley's Point Counterpoint but I haven't continued reading it yet. I liked The Europeans, though I definitely see how his writing is still a little immature (i.e. he takes more time on satisfactorily developing his characters in The Portrait of a Lady, as far as I remember). The reason why I don't absolutely love Henry James is that, in my view, there is always a certain reserve in his writing, and a certain cynicism about human nature and circumstance. While he has sympathy with his characters while they are unhappy and disillusioned, he never really allows them to be happy. But I'm willing to concede that in high society the true nature of people may really be hardened to the point of emotional and moral apathy, and that they may really exploit others whenever they can, so that it is by no means a cheering environment.

Anyway, I'm also about one-third of the way through The Pickwick Papers, and I've been re-reading bits of Ovid's Metamorphoses as well as Die schönsten Sagen des klassischen Altertums by Gustav Schwab. The reason I'm reading up on Greek and Roman legends is that I've found it frustrating to be in a European gallery and not to know what the stories being depicted in the paintings are about. For this same reason I plan to read up on the saints.

Yesterday I wrote two short satires. The first, entitled "The Romance of a Paddlewheeler" is about a lady who falls off a steamship into the Missouri River in pursuit of her parasol, to be rescued by another passenger. The second, entitled "The Duel of the Gondolas" is about a young count, en route to the Doge's palace in Venice, who rescues a lovely maiden from the clutches of the villainous Don Luigi by fighting him with a gondola-pole. It tends to be problematic to write satires about stories that few people have read, but I think the two tales are more or less archetypal anyway. With the Venetian story I had Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho in mind, as well as a story written by Jo in Little Women. I think that Edgar Allan Poe and Oscar Wilde have also written dark romances set in Italy, though not necessarily Venice -- the Duchess of Padua for instance.

But I find that writing satire is draining; it requires a considerable effort to keep up the tone, and it is difficult to write satirically and sympathetically at the same time so as not to be drily derisory. I think that satire is not always funny, and I prefer the funny kind except in serious cases, like the situation to which A Modest Proposal responded. Reading satire -- especially of the subtle variety -- can be draining, too. The last time I reread Pride and Prejudice I found it wearying to find some little thrust in (nearly) every sentence, because it absorbed so much of my attention and prevented me from fully enjoying the other aspects. In that way Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion are gentler. But in moderation I am very fond of wit.

P.S.: I apologize for the broad title; evidently my wits are rusty and have been so for several weeks.