The Roaring 20s

Ladies of Literature, the Halloween Edition

I’ve settled on a costume for this Halloween but there were a few (read: several) contenders along the way.   Should you find yourself short of ideas, female, and nerdy as the day is long, consider going as:

Miss Havisham from Great Expectations.  You’ll need: an old wedding dress, a moldy piece of uneaten wedding cake, and a black, black heart.  
Katey Kontent from Amor Towles’ Rules of Civility: You’ll need: ample doses of sass, a Deco dress, and a willingness to drink alone.  

Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz, re-tooled.  Or should we say…re-tulled? You will also need a silver wand, un-shakeable optimism, and some sparkly shoes.  

“What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why…” There’s no holiday better suited for polyamory than Halloween (at least in New York). Take a lover or two and go as Pulitzer prize-winning poetess Edna St. Vincent Millay. You’ll need: a flame-red wig, lacy undergarments, and a gauzy, trailing gown. 

If your date likes gin and you find yourself feeling a bit unhinged, why not dress as Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald? You’ll need: a tendency towards narcissism, liberal amounts of flapper-wear, and an iron liver.   

Thetis, from Madeline Miller’s forthcoming The Song of Achilles.  Anyone who has read this excellent re-telling of The Iliad will agree: Thetis—Achilles’ mother—steals the show.  Don this slinky goddess dress, curl your hair, and take no prisoners.

Scarlett O’Hara (Gone with the Wind).  You’ll need: a dearth of self-knowledge, a book of Southern exclamations, a passion for vittles, and a dress to wear to the barbecue.  Remember: if you sit at a picnic table, you’ll only have two sides.  Better pull a chair out and let your beaus surround you.

Madeleine Hanna from Jeffrey Eugenides’ latest, The Marriage Plot.  You’ll need: a pile of Victorian novels, incurable romanticism, and a borrowed Betsey Johnson dress.  Get it dry-cleaned, just to be on the safe side.      

Patti Smith, musician, poet, author of Just Kids.  The best part about this costume is the range of choices, though I’d go with Patti’s menswear phase.  For that you’ll need: a tux, a dog-eared copy of Rimbaud’s collected works, a white collared shirt, and a pocketful of stolen steak. 

For equally nerdy, mixed-gender literary ideas, click here and be sure to check out Flavorpill's DIY Pop Culture Halloween Costumes.  

My Favorite Holiday

It’s national poetry day, which undoubtedly means vastly different things depending on your taste for the stuff.  For my part, I read poetry the way some people read their Bible (though for the record, the Bible can be exceedingly poetic).   So, in honor of the holiday, here are some poetic recommendations for both the novice and great admirer of verse.  Don’t be intimidated if you’re the former—poetry is for everyone.  I promise.    

Hey, it’s your birthday.  Happy birthday! Between parties, take a quiet moment alone to reflect on your life.  For this, there’s nothing like the lyrical sprawl of Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself.  

Heartbroken and bereft? Sylvia Plath’s Ariel is a classic for a reason—nearly every poem in the collection speaks to the intricacies of romantic loss.  “And we, too, had a relationship -/Tight wires between us,/
Pegs too deep to uproot, and a mind like a ring/Sliding shut on some quick thing,/The constriction killing me also.”            

Fighting through a rough patch at home, at work, in life? Anne Sexton’s “Courage” tops my list, every time. 

Perhaps instead, you’re shimmering and tingling with the effervescence of new love. There’s an e.e. cummings poem for that.  Several, actually.  

When infatuation deepens into real intimacy, as it does when we’re lucky, there’s a gorgeous Pablo Neruda poem, “A Night on the Island” for just that feeling.   

From here, you might get into Philip Levine, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Byron, Robert Lowell, Tennyson, William Butler Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Sappho, or even—by my troth—Shakespeare.  Maybe that’s the best part about poetry—the sheer adventure of it.  The speed of its pleasure, the infinite variety.  What are your favorite poems? Feel free to sound off in the comments.     

The Age of Innocence

There is a distinct possibility that I've discovered the perfect Fall read for young New Yorkers with a Netflix subscription.  Scratch that--most anyone should like this book.  I'm talking about Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, which won the Pulitzer in 1921.  Wharton was previously known for The House of Mirth, which took a sharply satirical look at the caste system of affluent New York. The Age of Innocence was lauded as an apology for the severity of that earlier novel and succeeds--quite impressively-- in drawing a social critique that never once infringes on the reader's development of real empathy for its characters.  

Newland Archer, a well-intentioned young lawyer (played by Daniel Day Lewis in the adaptation), has a longing for all things exotic and edifying.  We open on a night at the opera and a society ball, where he is about to announce his engagement to May Welland, an appropriate match in class and station.  In her purity and cultivated naivete, May is everything society expects of a young wife.  But opera night marks another social milestone for the Wellands--the reentry into society of their cousin Ellen Olenska, newly returned from Europe and disgraced by a scandalous separation from her husband.  Over the course of the novel, May's family asks Newland to advise Ellen and prevent her from divorcing her husband, as divorce would bring dishonor to the family.  But in examining Ellen's case, Newland begins to develop an intimacy with the "fallen woman," which threatens his engagement and future happiness. Ellen's growing feelings for Newland, meanwhile, must compete with her blinding desire to remake her life in a way that does no harm to anyone.        

More than any book I've read recently, The Age of Innoncence shatters the heart just as it seeks to mend it again.  Read the book, watch the film, and share this timeless New York novel with everyone you know.