The Rover by Aphra Behn

 Source of book: I own this.

 

Who was Aphra Behn? Have you ever heard of her? Alas, very few indeed have, even educated readers. 

 

Behn was likely the first woman in England to make her living by her writing. She wrote plays, novels, poetry, and other genres, with a prolific output. She was quite popular in her day, if a bit scandalous. 

 

Why scandalous? Well, her writing is full of sex - quite common during the Restoration period. (See my post about The Man of Mode by Sir George Etheredge.) This particular genre of comedic play centered around the “rake,” a sexually licentious character. 

 

Perhaps, though, the real reason that Behn’s plays were considered scandalous is that her female characters are equally horny - they are hardly reluctant maidens. Much like, perhaps, Behn herself. This gender-neutral frankness was popular at the time, but fell out of fashion later. 

 

Little is definitively known about Behn’s birth and childhood. There are at least three completely different stories, which she may have encouraged rather than reveal the truth. Since neither birth nor tax records can be found, very likely she changed her name as an adult. It is undisputed that she was born working class, and somehow, in an era when women were not given access to an education, she managed to become literate. 

 

It is likely that she had a brief marriage as a young woman, and was either widowed or separated from her husband soon thereafter. While not certain, it is believed that she lived briefly in Suriname, perhaps with her husband’s relatives, which gave her the experience and inspiration for her most famous work, Oroonoko, which argued against enslavement. 

 

Sometime later, her story becomes more clear. She was sent to Belgium by Charles II as a spy. Not only did he fail to support her there, he failed to pay her what he owed her, and she ended up in debt. 

 

Back in England, she reinvented herself as a playwright and author, although some gaps in her output imply that she never entirely gave up the espionage gig. 

 

Oh, and more scandal. Rather than re-marry, she lived her life like plenty of men in the Restoration era, particularly artists. She was linked with a number of men, although her longest and closest paramour was the bisexual lawyer John Hoyle. (Who had a pretty crazy life story too.) 

 

All this earned her one of the best descriptions - intended to be derogatory, but actually pretty badass: “Punk and Poet.” 

 

After the Restoration period, the typical cultural pendulum swing meant a period of puritanism - where women were expected to be demure and “modest,” and men virile and condescending - and her works and lifestyle led to her dismissal as an immoral woman with immoral writing. While men can usually survive such a fate, women rarely do, and her works fell into obscurity.

 

It was not until the 20th Century that her reputation was restored, in no small part because of feminist writers such as Virginia Woolf advocating for her merit. Changing beliefs about women also helped - while the Victorian belief that women do not like or enjoy sex continues to be pushed in some subcultures, the acknowledgement of female sexuality is becoming more and more mainstream. 

 

It is kind of weird to think that modern society is just now getting back to where it was in the 1600s on this issue, but here we are. 

 

The Rover is, as the name implies, about a rake. And it is a comedy that ends in a bunch of marriages. The plot is borrowed from Thomaso by Thomas Killegrew - Behn denied that she took much from the prior work, but it is clear that she borrowed quite a lot. This should not be taken to mean that it was plagiarized - Shakespeare himself never wrote a truly original plot or told an original story. It was all about the craftsmanship in the storytelling. 

 

The same applies here. Critics have differed on which play is better, and, as I have not read Killegrew’s version, I am not able to add my own opinion. What I can say is that Behn’s version is supremely witty, and more female-centered than anything else I have read from this era. More lines are given to the four main female characters than their corresponding male leads, and they get the best of the wit as well. 

 

The play is plenty bawdy, but not graphic. Instead, it is all about the double entendres, the multivalent meanings, and the symbolism. 

 

There are a couple of sour notes. First is that there is casual anti-semitism in the play, something all too common in Western literature. Second, there is the plot device of men treating prostitutes as fair game for rape, which isn’t funny, even if the men do get their comeuppance for it. 

 

The plot is, naturally, a bit…complicated. It is set in Spain during Carnival, and involves English military officers and gentlemen, and Spanish women. 

 

Hellena and Florinda are aristocratic sisters, whose lives have been ordered by their father and older brother, Don Pedro. Hellena is destined for the convent, while Florinda is to be married off forthwith. Don Pedro wants her to marry his buddy, Don Antonio; while her father wants her to marry the elderly Don Vincentio. Florinda, however, has fallen in love with the English colonel, Belville, and is making plans with him to elope. 

 

The sisters and their cousin, Valeria, dress up for carnival, with masks and all, so, you know - nobody knows who anyone else is. They meet a quartet of Englishmen: Belville, his buddy Frederick, Blunt - who is destined to be the butt of some humor, and Willmore - the rake of the story. Also there is Lucetta, a stock character called a “jilting wench” - she seduces Blunt and steals everything from him, including his clothes later in the play. 

 

The other three, after flirting with the ladies, decide to visit Angellica, a courtesan who is back on the market - literally. She is offering to be the paramour of whoever is willing and able to afford her price - a thousand pounds a month. 

 

Angellica is destined to be the source of two events that will become important to the plot. Willmore steals a picture of Angellica, leading her to pursue him for its return. And Don Antonio and Don Pedro get into a fight that leads to a duel challenge. 

 

Oh, and Willmore, who is too broke to afford Angellica, still manages to seduce her. 

 

From there, things get increasingly mixed up, with poor Florinda being mistaken for a prostitute multiple times, and nearly raped a couple of others. Willmore and Antonio fight, and Antonio is injured. Since he then is unable to duel, he blackmails Belville (who he thinks is the one who wounded him) into substituting for him. 

 

Except that the duel never actually happens, because everything else goes wrong - identities are mistaken and revealed, more fighting happens, witty speeches are made, and a bunch of people get married at the end. So it ends happily. 

 

Well, except maybe for Willmore, as he ends up married to Hellena, who is clearly going to run his life. 

 

The plot is clearly a bit silly (as are the plots of Shakespeare’s comedies), but the fun of the play is in the witty repartee. 

 

Here are the ones I liked the best:

 

When Willmore is trying to seduce Angellica, he complains about her expecting money. She turns it on him. 

 

ANGELLICA: Pray tell me sir, are you not guilty of the same mercenary crime, when a lady is proposed to you for a wife, you never ask, how fair - discreet - or virtuous she is; but what’s her fortune - which if but small, you cry - she will not do my business - and basely leave her, though she languish for you - say, is this not as poor?

 

I mentioned that Hellena gets many of the best lines. She is able to speak her mind at will, and she is determined that if she is indeed destined for the convent, that she get her pleasures in while she can. (Scandalous, I’m sure.) This little speech, to her sister, who is besotted by Belville, is gold. 

 

HELLENA: Hang your considering lover; I never thought beyond the fancy that ‘twas a very pretty, idle, silly kind of pleasure to pass one’s time with, to write little soft nonsensical billets, and with great difficulty and danger receive answers; in which I shall have my beauty praised, my wit admired (though little or none) and shall have the vanity and power to know I am desirable; then I have the more inclination that way, because I am to be a nun, and so shall not be suspected to have any such earthly thoughts about me - but when I walk thus - and sigh thus - they’ll think my mind’s upon my monastery, and cry, ‘how happy ‘tis she’s so resolved.

 

Later in the play, the masked Hellena flirts with Willmore. 

 

WILLMORE: Do not abuse me, for fear I should take thee at thy word, and marry thee indeed, which I’m sure will be revenge sufficient.

HELLENA:  O’ my conscience, that will be our destiny, because we are both of one humour; I am as inconstant as you, for I have considered, captain, that a handsome woman has a great deal to do whilst her face is good, for then is our harvest-time to gather friends; and should I in these days of my youth catch a fit of foolish constancy, I were undone; for ‘tis loitering by daylight in our great journey: therefore I declare, I’ll allow but one year for love, one year for indifference, and one year for hate - and then - go hang yourself - for I profess myself the gay, the kind, and the inconstant - the devil’s in’t if this won’t please you. 

 

That’s comic gold and a foreshadowing of what will happen. 

 

While the attempted rape elements don’t seem as funny as they might have 300 plus years ago, there are some lines that are rather interesting. This one, from Willmore, trying to convince the disguised Florinda (who he mistakes for a prostitute) to sleep with him, is actually something that is endemic to the Purity Culture I grew up in. 

 

FLORINDA: Heavens! What a filthy beast is this?

WILLMORE: I am so, and thou oughtest the sooner to lie with me for that reason - for look you child, there will be no sin in’t, because ‘twas neither designed nor premeditated. ‘Tis pure accident on both sides - that’s a certain thing now - indeed should I make love to you, and you vow fidelity - and swear and lie till you believed and yielded - that were to make it wilful fornication - the crying sin of the nation - thou art therefore (as thou art a good Christian) obliged in conscience to deny me nothing. 

 

If you ever wondered why conservative subcultures tend to have high teen pregnancy rates, this is it. To use contraception shows “premeditation” and makes premarital sex a greater sin than just “getting carried away by accident.” It also is why, given that the burden of preventing sex from happening is placed on the woman, that there is so often a very rape-y dynamic. The man is allowed to push, because that is supposedly his nature, but a woman is not allowed to say she wants it. (Contrast Hellena above.) So he pushes, and even perhaps “forces” her, so that she can plausibly say she tried her best, but he was just too “manly” for her, rather than admit she was horny too. That this also gives a cover to actual rapists to violate women should be obvious. It’s a fucked up system all around. 

 

Despite the problems surrounding the premise of the scene, it does become incredibly funny once Belville comes on the scene and recognizes Florinda. He and Willmore argue, culminating in this exchange:

 

WILLMORE: Thou breakfast my heart with these complains; there is no star in fault, no influence, but sack, the cursed sack I drank.

BELVILLE: Why, how the devil came you so drunk?

WILLMORE: Why, how the devil came you so sober?

 

Willmore is in for more laughs at his expense, of course. Angellica shows up - with a gun, fully intending to kill him for his betrayal and theft of her picture. The whole scene looks like it would be fun to stage, with Willmore clearly cowering from a woman who has way more huevos than he does. At one point she tells him “I scorn to cool that fire I cannot raise.” 

 

Florinda, meanwhile, escapes, but ends up having to take refuge with Blunt, who has just been robbed. Here too, she is at risk for rape, being mistaken for a prostitute, but instead, the other guys all show up. Florinda is locked in a room, while Blunt tries to talk his way out of everything. Eventually, everyone knows he has a woman locked in the room, but nobody knows who she is. Thinking that this prostitute might be fair game for anyone, they draw straws for who gets to go release her. 

 

And by “draw straws,” I really mean “have a sword measuring contest.” I am not making that up. Talk about a double entendre. And it gets weirder: the winner is Don Pedro, because he is a Spaniard. I mean, yes, the sword styles are different, so that’s kind of funny. But it also plays into the whole “browner skinned people with big dicks” stereotype that predates its use for men of African descent. (The Romans definitely had this going on, both with their preference for small penises and their portrayal of any foreign “barbarian” race as having vulgarly large equipment.) 

 

There is another line that also reminded me of a particular religious belief about sex. While Evangelicals do not tend to hold this view, it has been around for a long time, despite having zero basis in scripture. Tolstoy wrote an entire novella around the premise, actually, The Kreutzer Sonata.

 

Essentially, this belief is that the original sin in the Garden of Eden was sexual intercourse. That apple (or whatever fruit) is just a metaphor - Adam and Eve sinned by doing the nasty, and ever since, we all (or most of us) continue to sin by having sex. 

 

Yeah, that’s not a great belief, and definitely leads to problems. See for another example Augustine and his belief that, while reproduction was not sinful, sexual pleasure was. Which makes me wonder just how bad he was in bed…

 

Anyway, Belville references it when he teases Frederick for succumbing to matrimony (to Valeria.) 

 

BELVILLE: Boast, why thou dost nothing but boast; and I dare swear, wert thou as innocent from the sin of the grape, as thou art from the apple, thou mightst claim that right in Eden which our first parents lost by too much loving. 

 

At the end, there is one more scene of repartee between Willmore and Helena. He wants to sleep with her, but not marry. However, her wiles get the better of him and he ends up stuck. This exchange is fun:

 

HELLENA: And if you do not lose, what shall I get? A cradle full of noise and mischief, with a pack of repentance at my back? Can you teach me to weave inkle to pass my time with? ‘Tis upse gypsy that too.

WILLMORE: I can teach thee to weave a true love’s knot better.

HELLENA: So can my dog. 

 

One final note. Blunt swears like, well, a sailor, but with oaths that are not quite as familiar to us these days. His favorite is “sheartlikins.” Like “zounds,” which we forget is a reference to “God’s wounds” - a serious profanity - “sheartlikins” is also a profanation. It means “God’s little heart,” which seems like the “bless your little heart” of swears. It also sounds a bit like a reference to wet flatulence. 

 

I very much hope someone does this play locally, as it is quite witty, and shows a female point of view within its genre. The anti-semitic lines could easily be cut, and the attempted rape scenes reworked slightly (which would also make them funnier) but the core of the play would work well as it is. 

 

In any case, it is a shame that it has taken so long for Behn to be recognized as the important writer she is. 

 

The Liars of Nature and the Nature of Liars by Lixing Sun

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

 

Every so often, I like to read a book on some facet of nature related to evolution and evolutionary pressures. This one seemed interesting, because “lying” is a huge part of nature itself - we humans are not remotely unique in this behavior. 

 

Perhaps “lying” is the wrong word here. “Deception” is better, but Sun uses “cheating” to describe the various traits and behaviors which use deception to gain an evolutionary advantage.

 

This book seems timely - it was published just last year, which means the author can tie in some of our lie-saturated politics of the Trump Era in the chapters on human behavior. 

 

Particularly interesting to me is the distinction that the author makes between two kinds of cheating: one is by sending false messages - lying. The other is exploiting biases, weaknesses, or deficits in the cognitive system of other animals. (Or plants, for that matter - the book focuses on animals but notes that all kinds of life have their own forms of deception.) 

 

Perhaps a good example of the former is when a raven sends a false “predator approaching” signal so it can eat the carrion the bigger birds are eating. It is a lie - a communication that has its message corrupted so to speak. 

 

The second can be demonstrated by the way a hover fly looks at first glance like a wasp, making it appear dangerous and toxic to eat. 

 

Throughout the book, Sun examines the evolutionary arms race between cheaters and the means of detection of cheating. As the closing chapters note, this is ongoing in human society - we are in a transition period right now where new technology has enabled new ways of exploiting our cognitive loopholes, but for many the immune system has failed to catch up. (The existence of the MAGA movement is very much proof of this - it is based on delusion and exploitation of cognitive loopholes.) 

 

As with any evolutionary biology book, I find that there is a little bit of overreach, which is to be expected. If you are an evolutionary biologist, you seek to explain everything that way. This isn’t wrong, per se - evolution does indeed shed a lot of light on animal and human behaviors - but it can lead to an oversimplification of cultural factors. 

 

As Augustin Fuentes argued, it is all too easy to explain “what is” as simply “human nature,” baked into our genes - and that includes gender stereotypes, racial stereotypes, and so on - rather than seeing “what is” as a cultural phenomenon, one of many possibilities. This is the same problem I have with Determinism generally - it makes no place for free will and thus the possibility of positive change.

 

I think Sun does his best to avoid this, even noting that he is using extreme oversimplifications when it comes to the battle of the sexes and that even in the animal world, things are a lot more complicated. If you read with this understanding, I think his points will seem more enlightening.

 

Notwithstanding this reality, Sun does make great arguments for his points, and opens a world of causes, effects, and countereffects that explain a lot of what we see in our world. It’s well worth a read. 

 

One final comment before I get into the book itself: one thing I have noticed over the last few decades is that religious fundamentalists deny the truth of evolution at the same time that they take the most Darwinian positions about human nature. Their obsession with sex is well known, but less noticed is that they have adopted the most extreme (and scientifically dubious) version of Darwinian sexual politics to justify their rules and practices. Likewise, while claiming to reject evolution, they have embraced Social Darwinism as their economic policy, viewing everything from poverty to inequality as survival of the fittest. 

 

It is puzzling to me, to say the least. But perhaps Fundies have found that self-deception is evolutionarily beneficial…

 

With that in mind, let’s dive in. One of the insights of scientific observation has been that humans are animals. This shouldn’t be controversial, but it is. We are animals - specifically primates - and our behaviors are mostly not unique. Yes, we have some that we alone do - mostly related to our social nature and our larger brains - but we share more than we acknowledge. 

 

This has caused particular problems in how certain religions approach sex: by denying that we are animals, they deny that sexuality is a core part of our nature and that our bodies are who we are. (Again, though, they tend in practice to adopt Darwinistic views of sexuality while denying that they do so…it’s weird.) 

 

Denial in this matter has led to repression of knowledge - for example that many animals engage in homosexual behavior, and show intersex and even transgender traits. (This book examines a few of those, by the way.) 

 

In this book, though, the behaviors of deception are shown to be widespread - indeed endemic to life. By looking at how deception works in the rest of nature, we can gain insight into how it functions in our own society. 

 

Regardless of their prevalence in nature, however, the words cheating, lying, and deception all come with negative connotations due to our moral preference and the premium we place on honesty. Although we value truth and loathe lies, real life often runs counter to what we ideally want. Contrary to the long-held dictum, honesty is not always the best policy in our daily lives.

 

As we find later in the book, all of us deceive, and do so constantly. Most of our deceptions are pro-social - the white lies necessary to live in peace with our fellow humans. As such, these are not morally bad, but the contrary - they hurt no one, and have a positive effect. The moral valence depends not a bright line, but on real-life effects. (Something Fundies really need to learn about morality - including their own.) 

 

With the emergence of modern human intelligence, the arms race between cheating and counter-cheating strategies was not only vastly expanded and intensified but also began to take place at a whole new level - the arena of cultural evolution. 

 

Understanding this is a key, in my opinion, to responding to the most pernicious forms of cheating in human culture. Many of the positive developments that we make are in response to cheating, and when we make them the cheaters are often furious, and work to find new ways of cheating to hold on to their advantages. Understanding the MAGA movement this way is illuminating: our society has permitted certain groups of people to attain undeserved advantages due to skin color, gender, and religion. And now that this systemic cheat is being challenged, they are furious and determined to maintain their unfair advantage. Not all, of course, because some of us with those advantages realize that humanity as a whole will be better with less cheating of this kind. 

 

I won’t get into all of the wonderful and fascinating examples from nature in this book. I have always been a science nerd, and the book is filled with great stuff. But it is best read in context rather than as quotes or blurbs. 

 

I do want to note this passage, though:

 

It’s wrong to assume that mimicry needs to be perfect, despite the many stunning cases we’ve examined. To exploit the cognitive loopholes of another species, you only need a good enough disguise to fool your target. Often a very crude mimic will suffice.

 

We see this in real life. Many of us find ourselves frustrated at the scams people fall for. To us, they look obvious. (Nigerian Prince anyone?) And we may also be frustrated at how supposed “christians” fell for an anti-christ orange messiah. But it helps to keep in mind that the mimic doesn’t need to be exact - or even close. It just needs to be good enough to exploit cognitive loopholes and biases. All Trump had to do was use specific cultural signifiers for white Evangelicalism to activate these biases in his favor – he would be “close enough” even though those of us with some distance from Evangelical subculture can’t see any actual resemblance.

 

I found his discussion of religion and rituals to be very interesting. I think he has some great insights that all of us, whether religious or not, should consider. 

 

On the surface, many religious practices seem enigmatic and maladaptive, including circumcision, fasting, and handling of dangerous animals such as poisonous snakes. But if we see these rituals as handicaps, they immediately make sense: they are ways to show devotion, build trust, forge loyalty, and facilitate cooperation, while deterring free riding among followers. This provides a compelling explanation for an otherwise paradoxical phenomenon: the more onerous and restrictive religious practices are, the more donations and attendance they’ll garner from church members.  

 

Sun ties this in with other seemingly maladaptive traits - think tails in male peafowl. Another fun tie-in was his comparison of the Brown-headed Cowbird (common in my area) to mafia thugs. It fits, by the way. 

 

Also fun is his use of the Wason Selection Task to explain social intelligence. It is no accident that social animals evolve not merely individual intelligence, but especially collective social intelligence. 

 

Changes in a social environment can take place at a moment’s notice, much faster than those in the physical environment. Social animals are therefore doubly challenged by the need to adapt at the same time to the complexity of their peer environment and their physical surroundings. As a result, two kinds of intelligence - individual and collective - are found in animals that live any kind of social life. 

 

This is a whole other level of cheating opportunity and cost as well. Both cooperation and manipulation can be successful strategies, but one can also be victimized by the latter. This also points out the importance of socialization for human development. Those who are too isolated (for example, some religious homeschoolers) can fail to develop the basic social sense - street smarts - that come with a wider exposure to human behavior. 

 

Also fascinating in this particular discussion was the question of when cheating become maladaptive - where it fails to lead to gains and instead damages the person or organism. 

 

Sun mentions the “dark triad” of personality traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. As he notes, the fact that very few people actually practice Machiavellianism and those who do fail to thrive indicates that it is not a particularly good trait to have as a human. However, occasionally, it works. 

 

That dark triad is present in Trump, for example. Given his wealth and privilege, and the particular cultural moment we are in with the rise of the Religious Right and the authoritarian parenting that went along with it, he lucked out. Had he been born poor, he would be dead or in prison by now. 

 

Also interesting to note is that, while those dark triad traits enabled one of my siblings to cheat within our family culture by exploiting my parents’ cognitive loopholes, it has not done them any favors outside of it. 

 

Humans are unique as to the level of cheating we have developed, even if cheating itself is common in nature. 

 

Cheating in humans is unrivaled in the animal world - whether in scale, variety, intricacy, or novelty. This is due primarily to three factors: the use of language, a high level of intelligence, and the complexity of human societies. Language provides a new powerful tool to lie and deceive; intelligence facilitates the invention and design of schemes; and societal complexity supplies a wellspring of opportunities to defraud. 

 

Unsurprisingly, the Ashley Madison website gets a mention, including the huge gender imbalance and the use of bots to impersonate women. (Another form of modern cheating!) But another statistic stood out:

 

Many biological and cultural factors - such as hormones, genetic makeup, intelligence, and tradition - affect cheating for sex. There is even a role played by religiosity. Statistics show that extremely religious people and unreligious people are more likely to cheat than those who are moderately religious. 

 

I’ll also note the discussion of Dunning Kruger Syndrome - where incompetent people overrate their abilities (or knowledge) while competent people underrate themselves. Actually, the whole chapter on self-delusion (and its evolutionary origin and benefits) was fascinating. 

 

Another passage talks extensively about placebos and their effects. His analysis of acupuncture is particularly perceptive:

 

Looking back from our modern perspective, acupuncture may be the best placebo ever invented to trick human psychology: it is invasive enough for people to put their faith in its magic without risking any unwanted side effect. 

 

This chapter also looks at social media and misinformation. Research bears out my own experience in one particular:

 

Nearly 80% of the total shares of fake news originated from a mere 0.1% of people - largely old, conservative men who were interested in politics. More amazingly, a 2021 analysis of Twitter and Facebook by the Center for Countering Digital Hate shows that 65% of disinformation about COVID-19 vaccines came from a mere 12 antivaxxers. 

 

Including, of course, charlatans and hucksters like Joseph Mercola, who has made millions from selling snake oil. Sun, like myself, finds it frustrating that combatting misinformation is such a hopeless task. People ultimately prefer delusion, even in times when truth and solutions are highly necessary - such as a pandemic. 

 

Even during times of crisis when citizens are more motivated to seek information that will lead to real solutions, they may still choose information that supports their own preconceived ideas and ignore information that doesn’t. Apparently, denying reality is a coping mechanism to protect people’s psychological well-being during times of stress, terror, and tragedy. 

 

This then ties in with Dunning-Kruger as well. He notes that in practice, those with uninflated views of their abilities tend to thrive. 

 

That is, modesty and humbleness will make us better, whereas pride and vainglorious perceptions do nothing but make us retreat into narcissistic fantasies and self-constructed shells. So, the wise become wiser because they remain humble and self-critical. That’s why sages such as Confucius, Socrates, Darwin, Einstein, and many others are famous for their modesty, which motivates them to learn from mistakes and overcome their weaknesses. 

 

Sun quotes a bunch of these, with the authors’ names in an endnote. I particularly like Alexander Pope’s version:

 

“A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.” 

 

The ending of the book is so good that I want to quote it at length. I think it contains wisdom for today that we all need to internalize. 

 

In this book, we have explored in depth the two laws all cheaters use: alter truthful information in communication (the biological essence of lying) and exploit cognitive loopholes (the biological foundation of deception.) Those laws apply equally in the biological world as well as in our social and cultural realms. Understanding these fundamental principles can help us design effective ways to fight antisocial cheating. This is quite like girding ourselves against destructive biological agents: germs, disease, and pests. Both are examples of evolutionary arms races. Instead of attempting to eliminate them from the face of the earth, a goal that has been proven impossible time and again, it’s more feasible to contain them.

 

As we’ve seen, one of the most surprising ideas in this book is that cheating - contrary to popular belief - is a powerful catalyst in creating diversity, complexity, and even beauty in nature. Cheating has led to novel behavioral tactics, physiological adaptions, and morphological structures. It has paved the way for the emergence and sophistication of intelligence and art. However, cheating has been so profoundly maligned in our culture that we tend to forget its important role in driving biological and cultural diversity.

 

If, before you read this book, you did hold a pessimistic view of cheating, based on the prevalence of malicious lies and deceptive tricks in our society, I hope you feel somewhat relieved at this point. In this regard, we should appreciate the German philosopher Hegel’s take: “What is rational is real; and what is real is rational.” Certainly we shouldn’t embrace antisocial cheating as good, but we can make the best of it. By containing it, we will not only lessen its harmful impacts but also harvest its catalytic power for innovation and the advancement of science, technology, economics, education, law, and many other aspects of our culture. Cheating and anti-cheating will continue to be odd bedfellows whose arms race will go on to stimulate new, positive developments. Therefore, we should not only take the Daoist stance of accepting cheating without fear or despair, but also have the audacity to rise above it and thrive amid its existence. 

 

In that sense, this is an optimistic book. There is nothing new under the sun. Every cheat eventually is countered by an anti-cheat. As social animals, we actually have proven to respond fairly quickly to changes, and even in the worst environments, find ways to work around the bad. 

 

Castle Nowhere by Constance Fennimore Woolson

<-->Source of book: I own this

 

One of my reading projects of the last decade or so has been to start exploring the classics beyond the best known authors. This is not to say I am ignoring the pantheon, of course - feel free to poke around my fiction index - I read a lot of classics and always have. 

 

One of the unfortunate truths about literature is that the question of who becomes part of the canon is not a matter of objective merit. It has always helped to be rich, white, male, or some combination thereof. For a woman in particular to break through, it has never been easy. Female authors are often sidelined as writing about “domestic matters” rather than the big issues of the day. (This is bullshit and always has been, but whatever.) 

 

It is thus that in our day, even the most literary of readers struggles to name female writers of the 19th Century and before beyond a handful of names. For American authors, that list probably looks like “Louisa May Alcott, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Emily Dickinson.” Maybe add Kate Chopin to that list. But other than that, it is mostly a bunch of white guys from New England. 

 

Perhaps one of the saddest things about the female authors of this era is that they were often far more popular at the time than they are now - which is some evidence that the decades after their deaths were even more sexist than when they were living. As part of my own quest to re-discover some of the forgotten female voices, I decided to track down a Library of America edition of Woolson. 

So who was Constance Fennimore Woolson? As the name implies, she was the grandniece of early American author James Fennimore Cooper. You know, the guy who wrote books about the Dirk Pitt of the colonial era, Natty Bumppo. 

 

Woolson grew up in an educated family, and herself was a college graduate. However, her life was marked by tragedy. Three of her sisters died of scarlet fever in a short period of time, two more died later of tuberculosis, her brother committed suicide, and, after her father’s early death, she turned to writing in order to supplement her modest income. 

 

Her stories are set in places she lived: first, the Great Lakes region where she grew up, then the American South where she spent summers with her mother, and finally Italy, where she lived for the second half of her life. The early works are mostly short stories, with the novels coming later. 

 

Woolson became friends with another ex-pat writer, Henry James, and there is some evidence she hoped it would become more than that. It was not to be, because James was somewhere on the gay-to-assexual continuum (there is no evidence of a romantic relationship with either men or women, and he himself refused to discuss or perhaps even think about it.) 

 

Even worse, although James apparently liked her as a person, he wasn’t a huge fan of her writing style, finding her female characters too passive for his taste. I am also of the opinion that very likely few if any authors lived up to James’ high standards - even himself. And James is one of the greatest psychological writers of all time anyway. Whatever the case, he eventually wrote about her writing, and, while he probably tried to be tactful, the result was a bit traumatic to her. 

 

James’ criticisms were valid at least in part - her female characters do have a tendency to suffer in silence, to practice self-denial rather than taking risks to live authentically, and to end tragically as a result. The narrators are often the opposite - and are often male characters. 

 

That said, I think James’ tendency to sexism shows through a bit as well, and he all too easily dismisses the books as “typically female.” If I had read the stories without knowing the author was a woman, I would not necessarily have guessed it other than the fact that there are actually some female narrators, which is unusual for male authors of the era. The prose itself is unsentimental - as she said, she hated pretty and “sweet” writing. She described her writing as ugly and bitter, but ultimately strong. 

 

Woolson’s death at the age of 53 was and is controversial. She suffered from depression her entire life, but at the time was also ill with influenza - and possibly delirious. What is known is that she fell or jumped from her 4th story window and died an hour later of her injuries. It was a sad end for a talented writer. 

 

The collection I have contains selected stories from her four collections, as well as a pair of uncollected stories she wrote for magazines. Unfortunately, none of them are complete. For the one I chose, Castle Nowhere, six of the nine stories are included. The title story and two others are omitted. I might complain more, except that finding complete versions (except as online scans) is near impossible, and the book is already nearly 700 pages long. 

 

As with others of this sort, I will mention just a few things about each story.

 

Overall, the collection is quite good - I don’t see Woolson as a second-rate author, at least as far as the short stories go. These are all set in the Great Lakes area, and concern people on the margins of society: miners, religious fanatics, oddballs, social outcasts, and so on. She writes with empathy and a gentle touch. For the most part, her descriptions are excellent and evocative, and her settings are unforgettable. 

 

Honestly, one of the best proofs of sexism in the literary canon is that James Fennimore Cooper is well known and studied, while his grandniece’s books are not. Having read both, Cooper’s writing is fourth-rate at best, and not nearly as good as Woolson’s is.

 

With that, here are the six stories included:

 

“Peter the Parson” 

 

 This one is about an ill-fated minister sent to an outlying mining settlement on Lake Superior. He is not the best man for this job - he doesn’t have the gravitas or the personality to hold his own, just an upright sense of morality that doesn’t mesh well with rough frontier justice. He is described in this excellent line:

 

There was a boyishness in his air, or, rather, lack of air, and a nervous timidity in his manner, which stamped him as a person of no importance, - one of those men who, not of sufficient consequence to be disliked, are simply ignored by a well-bred world, which pardons anything rather than insignificance. 

 

Soon, he finds himself in an impossible situation through no fault of his own. The local bully (whose dog terrifies the parson), has a crush on the lovely Rosie Ray, who is herself smitten with the parson. 

 

This leads to tragedy in the end, unfortunately, in part through the passive response of the parson when he should have been active, and his choice to meddle in a matter he should have avoided. 

 

“Jeanette”

 

I would say this is another ill-fated love story, but it isn’t a love story at all when it comes down to it. The unnamed narrator wishes to set her military surgeon nephew up with Jeanette, an enigmatic French and Indigenous young woman who the narrator has taken under her wing. 

 

The problem, though, is that, while Rodney eventually falls in love with her (perhaps against his better judgment - she is below his class after all), she has always been in love with a fisherman, and laughs him away. The true drama in the story is the fantasy that the narrator and her nephew have built around the match. 

 

There is one line that I found amusing, in no small part given the last few years of Highway 1 sliding into the ocean here in California. 

 

In 1856, there was no time for road-making, for when military duty was over there was always more or less mending to keep the whole fortification from sliding down hill into the lake.

 

Another fascinating line was an observation about race relations. 

 

I noticed this as a peculiarity of the New England Abolitionist. Theoretically he believed in the equality of the enslaved race, and stood ready to maintain the belief with his life, but practically he held himself entirely aloof from them; the Southern creed and practice were the exact reverse.

 

“Solomon”

 

This one is quite the tragedy of a story, and also a fascinating study in personality. A pair of sisters, Erminia, and the narrator, Dora, are vacationing in the Ohio coal country, in a community of what are either Amish or a related anabaptist group. 

 

One day, they head out to find a sulfur spring, which is located on the property of Solomon and his wife. He grew up there, and later returned, although he was never part of the religious community as a child. He also seems to be autistic, although that term was unknown at the time the story was written of course. He fell in love with a woman, who married him, and followed him back to the community. We do not find out her name (Dorcus) until near the end of the story. 

 

This is a pretty good metaphor for her life - she left a middle class existence to end up in a ramshackle house with a dog she loathes, and a husband who works in the mines for sustenance, and spends the rest of his time painting lousy pictures of her. 

 

The most fascinating part of this story to me is the way that the sisters disagree as to which of the two should be pitied the most. Is it Dorcus, whose life has been a bitter disappointment to her, or Solomon, who is stuck with an unhappy wife but without the skills to make her happy? 

 

“Wilhelmina”

 

This one wasn’t my favorite. The titular character is in another of those anabaptist communities, where the young men, threatened with the draft, end up enlisting in the army. Her beau is one of those, and she eagerly awaits his return, when he will marry her. 

 

Unfortunately, he has now seen the world, and considers her a boring provincial girl, and throws her over. 

 

While an interesting look at the dynamics of the community - one not too far off from the Fundie subculture - it is the most irritating version of the passive female who is content to die of unrequited love rather than find a life purpose beyond a man. And yes, I have seen this sort of scenario myself, minus the pining to death, fortunately. 

 

“St. Clair Flats”

 

This story, on the other hand, contains one of the most vivid descriptions in the book. Two young men are on a steamboat along the Lake Erie coast, and decide to stop at the titular location. Which turns out to have all of two families - the lighthouse keeper and his wife and menagerie of small children, and an eccentric couple: Waiting Samuel and his wife Roxana. 

 

Because the lighthouse has zero space for visitors owing to all the children, the only place for them to stay is with the others, who must be accessed by a winding channel through the reeds. This is the description that is so amazing. It really brings the place to life. 

 

Waiting Samuel is a prophet of sorts, or a religious nut-job if you prefer. He sees visions and speaks to spirits, and is awaiting the end times - hence the name. In contrast, Roxana is prosaic and practical - the person who makes sure they don’t starve. But both of them are sympathetic characters as well, and their closeness to nature inspires the narrator. 

 

Like Dorcus, Roxana is another passive woman who has given up so much for her man, for little reward. But she is no Wilhelmina either - she has found her own purpose and does not seem unhappy. 

 

“The Lady of Little Fishing”

 

The final story in the collection is about an abandoned mining settlement with a mysterious story. It bookends the first one on several counts. Obviously the mining, but also that of religion and unrequited love. In this case, a young woman appears as a missionary, and tries to reform the settlement. The problem is, everyone is in love with her, not with God. Oh, except for the young man that she fancies, who is uninterested. 

 

There is a fun twist in this one at the end, and some lovely descriptions. 

 

Overall, the collection is a good read. James wasn’t wrong about the female characters, but they are actually quite believable - anyone who has lived in today’s Fundie subculture can recognize the pressure to be a passive woman, a silent sufferer, and one paralyzed when it comes to pivotal decisions. 

 

As I noted regarding William Dean Howells, just because a writer isn’t in the pantheon of the all-time greats doesn’t mean that their writing isn’t good or worth experiencing. Often, the secondary lights are the ones that make up most of the sky, and give the most complete picture of an era. Woolson is one of those authors that helps complete the picture, and gives a unique perspective.