#danielle dutton

Jacques Roubaud, (1997), Mathematics: (a novel), Translated by Ian Monk, Dalkey Archive Press, Champaign, IL, Dublin, and London, 2012 (Internet Archive here)

Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other, Danielle Dutton - I put this on hold because 1) I love Dutton's novel, Margaret the First, and 2) the cover art is so different and so great. I really enjoyed the experience of reading PDAO; it made me feel smart, like I was back in school. That said, I also had to skim some of the "Art" section because it went over my head. I was most engrossed by the short stories in "Prairie" and the collection of literary dress quotes in "Dresses." In a fun coincidence, I had just started reading Lolly Willowes, and one of the dress quotes is pulled from that novel. Keep doing you, Danielle Dutton—I love your weird brain.

Lolly Willowes: or, The Loving Huntsman, Sylvia Townsend Warner - Another book I picked up because 1) I enjoyed a different novel by the author (in this case, Warner's Black Death nun book, The Corner That Held Them) and 2) the cover art called to me (in this case, witches flying on brooms across a hideous yellow background). Lolly Willowes is a wild ride—it was the first-ever book selected by the Book of the Month Club!—and yes, there are witches.

Beautyland, Marie-Helene Bertino - It took me longer than expected to get invested in this, for which I blame my tragic attention span, but I was hooked as soon as the protagonist started her high school years. A beautiful character, the most beautiful writing, and of course I cried buckets.

The Alternatives, Caoilinn Hughes - A novel about four sisters! Set in Ireland! It's funny and cynical! Unfortunately it lost my interest for a hot second 3/4 of the way through, but the insane ending saved the day.

Any Person Is the Only Self: Essays, Elisa Gabbert - An all-time favorite. If reading is central to your identity, you must get this book.

Grief Is for People, Sloane Crosley - I will think about the Grand Central Station scene forever. Yes, this book is very sad, but also there's a lot of publishing industry gossip. After you read it, I highly recommend listening to her interview on the Longform podcast.

#61 Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton

A fictional story about the life of Margaret Cavendish - an English noble woman from the 17th century.

Ahead of her time Lady Cavendish was an author of several books and plays. She was eccentric in her appearance and manners at times but the book, written almost like a diary in part, tells of an intelligent woman prone to bouts of depression.

The writing, giving insight into Margaret's mind, is frenetic and eccentric but it was a joy to read. A wonderful little book that made me want to read and learn more about Margaret Cavendish.

A couple of my favourite lines from the book:

"I had rather be a meteor, singly, alone."

Danielle Dutton (Dorothy, a publishing project) close-reads Berg by British writer Ann Quin (1936-1973):

"It’s hard to imagine a book that clashes comedy and tragedy quite so blatantly as Berg, Ann Quin’s 1964 reimagining of the Oedipal myth (read an excerpt here.) Rare enough is a book that begins by stating its intention—'A man named Berg, who changed his name to Greb, came to a seaside town intending to kill his father…'—rarer still one that proceeds to do seemingly everything it can to avoid following the path its intention has laid." 

A dreamy portrait of a woman and the world she created

Danielle Dutton’s Margaret the First is a beautiful example of historical fiction done right.  By taking the found letters, philosophical musings, and fictional works of Margaret Cavendish (and the accounts of her by others), Dutton makes Margaret feel even more human than these documents could for a contemporary audience by allowing us into the mind of this strange and fascinating woman.  It’s just a shame that women like Margaret Cavendish tend to be forgotten by history.

Margaret Cavendish (née Lucas) grew up with little need for company other than her siblings, happily following her imagination and even at a young age interested in writing.  She was born in 1623 and died in 1673, only fifty years old; her husband, William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, was already past that age when he and Margaret married.  Yet their marriage was not arranged or unhappy with such an age gap.  Both apparently truly loved and respected the other.

The novel follows Margaret from her youth to her last days, chronicling the confident young girl who apparently became very shy once forced into the company of strangers after becoming a maid of honor to the exiled Queen of England in the wake of English civil war.  During this time she met William Cavendish and eventually married him, yet she never really recovered from her bashfulness, exciting rumors of oddness and foolishness everywhere she went.

From the summary on the book jacket, Margaret’s personality and the events occurring may be somewhat unexpected. It might be expected that a woman who dared to wear a topless gown to the opera would be a brazen, flirtatious woman; you can keep waiting for this change in personality to occur in Margaret, but it will not.  Margaret remains painfully shy, yet she dearly desires fame and has bursts of bold interlude.  She is simply a woman who believes in her singularity, not letting her shyness stop her from wearing the fashions she admires and following through with what she believes in.  Most of all, Margaret seems set on not being like anyone else, which she often does with her colorful fashion choices just as successfully as her penchant for writing and philosophizing.  This is a novel of a contradictory woman.  

Yet to be fair, she is a woman living in a contradictory time.  She knows she is intelligent and worthy of being listened to, yet she also acknowledges that as a woman, she is not supposed to show her intelligence.  Her husband encourages her to write and publish, yet he is also the speaker of this extraordinary statement: “The truth is… women should never speak more than to ask rational questions, or to give a discreet answer to a question asked of them.  They ought… to be sparing of speech, especially in company of men.” Margaret believes women to be the weaker sex, yet she also points out how women have much more to be aggrieved about by their situation in life than men.  It is always interesting to see a woman’s view on her conditions at a time where women were given comparatively so little space to occupy, especially in comparison to modern times.  (And perhaps one day in the furutre, someone will make a similar statement on women’s rights in comparison to today.  One can only hope.)