review of
W.D. Howells' The Landlord at Lion's Head
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 11, 2012

I got this at a bkstore that's closing up shop. This is at least the 7th bkstore to do so in PGH in the 17 yrs I've lived here. Only 1 bkstore that I can think of has replaced them. Not a good sign. On the spine of this 1897 hardback the author's name is written as "HOWELLS". When I bought it (for a dollar) I thought it read "HGWELLS". This bk is almost physically identical in size & color to 2 H.G. Wells bks I already have (The Research Magnificent & Mr. Britling Sees It Through) - even down to the gold ink of the lettering. Hence the ease of my mistake. & I got another Howells bk under the same conditions.

So here I am w/ 2 bks by an author I don't recall ever having heard of. As it turns out, he's an American who lived, according to Wikipedia, from March 1, 1837 to May 11, 1920. Then again, this novel is listed there as from 1908 & my edition is from 1897, copyrighted 1896 - so much for Wikipedia's accuracy. Wikipedia also lists at least 50 bks by him including a collaboration w/ his friend Mark Twain. I reckon most Americans have heard of Mark Twain but how many have heard of William Dean Howells?! Only the title of what's reputed to've been his most famous novel, The Rise of Silas Lapham, seems even vaguely familiar.

SO, what we have here is a prolific American author, supposedly nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters" (presumably a pun off his middle name), now largely forgotten a mere 92 yrs after his death. Looking on one online bkstore that brags of over "8,000,000" bks I find ONE by Howells. I find a few more on Amazon, 1st editions from the 19th century, reasonably priced. What's going on here?

Howells is, by reputation, a 'realist'. I usually prefer works of the imagination to works based more on observation of human nature but I like both. If I were to choose between Lautrémont's Les Chants de Maldoror (1868) & this bk, it wd be no contest. Lautrémont was a visionary genius. But Howells is far from deserving this apparent post-mortem neglect. It seems to me that, once again, canonization is rearing its ugly head. How many highly literate Americans even know much about 19th century American authors? A friend of mine (who's taught 19th c American lit) & I listed how many such authors we cd think of off the tops of our heads. We came up w/ something like 16. That's less than 1 for every 6 yrs of the century! Surely there were many more remarkable writers of the time!

When reading a 'realist' work I reckon the test, for me, is: how convinced am I of the 'realism'? What seems realistic in a novel about a hotel to a person who doesn't run one might be very different indeed to someone who actually run one. What was interesting for me about this novel was that, even tho it's framed by a very different time of societal proprieties, it still rang 'true' in terms of subtleties of human nature & issues of human conduct.

I wdn't credit this bk w/ having any formal innovations. It's a classic 19th century novel of a nature that, it seems to me, was already decades old. No matter, that doesn't completely devalue it for me despite my thirst for innovation. Having the main locale be a country summer hotel provides a solid pretext for a rotating cast of traveling characters & Howells uses this to advantage w/o just milking it as a gimmick.

While there's plenty of subtle drama here, it doesn't depend on tragedy - unlike so much these days, no-one has to be murdered in order for the plot to be engrossing. Reading it, & enjoying it, & caring about the characters, made me feel like I am, indeed, 'old-fashioned' - despite my having been about as immersed in the 'avant-garde' my whole life as just about anyone who ever has been.

Howells doesn't oversimplify, always a relief to me. The ultimate character of the title is somewhat annoying, somewhat sympathetic, & not overly depicted in stereotyping ways. He's an individual - at the same time that he's presented as a person involved in ordinary day-to-day class struggle - ie: he's not political but he's caught up in class struggle in a personal way.

A crucial scene is one where Jeff, the landlord of the title, has brought food out to clients of the hotel on a picnic. One of the 'ladies' treats him like a servant & tries to put a good face on trying to get him out of the way so he doesn't 'contaminate' (my word choice) their little party. Jeff is aware of how he's being treated. His mother, the actual landlady of the hotel at the time, learns of this & evicts the offending woman from the hotel. In a sense, this conflict then fuels much of what happens later as Jeff grows into a young man at Harvard & manipulates people who look down on him from their privileged positions.

The novel's rich enuf in details: the people who populate the hotel, Boston, alluded-to trips to Europe & Egypt, Theosophists (only mentioned as "them Blavetsky fellers" (p 190) but still present) & the use of the planchette for 'spirit communication'. I'll be reading more by Howells (maybe) but not anytime soon. If I can help revive interest in him, I'm happy to do so. At the very least, reading this made me want to visit the country in New England where Lion's Head mountain is. ( )