Neo-Victorian Voices: The Marriage of Opposites, Alice Hoffman (2016)

I can only imagine Alice Hoffman’s excitement when she stumbled across the historical story that sits at the centre of her 2016 novel, The Marriage of Opposites. She went in search of French impressionist Camille Pissarro and found (instead?) the fascinating story of his mother, born Rachel Pomié.

The Marriage of Opposites (2016)

Raised on St Thomas in the 1800s, Rachel is part of a close-knit and judgmental community of Jews, who have fled Europe for the relative freedom of island life. Here, black former slaves, white Europeans and the Jewish population live side by side in relative harmony, provided people stay with their own ‘kind’.

Always headstrong, Rachel is soon at odds with her people when, as a young widow, she is thrown into proximity with her late husband’s nephew, Frédéric. Their love—destructive as it is fecund—sits at the heart of the novel, along with the question, what has bewitched him—Rachel or the island itself?

The novel at its best is a landscape of St Thomas—rich, multisensory, at once timeless and of its time—with a multigenerational drama played out against it. But the vast time period it covers is also a weakness. Neither male point-of-view character—Frédéric, or Camille Pissaro himself—is as convincing or passionate as Rachel, and the broad strokes of the work hamper the pacing. This is a novel you live, rather than race, through, luxuriating in prose that can at times weigh a reader down.

Alice Hoffman (1952- )

I couldn’t help but think Hoffman might have been better to narrow her vision to the earlier sections. Perhaps she felts bound to the more ‘sellable’ story of the famed French artist, when the heart of the novel she wrote lives elsewhere?

All in, you’ll love The Marriage of Opposites if you enjoy multi-generational sagas and being transported to more exotic locales than your average nineteenth-century drawing room. For me, the name ‘Camille Pissarro’ used to conjure images of Paris on a rainy day. Now it will also evoke the lizard basking in the sun, the herb man lurking in his hut and the turtles trundling up the sand.

Which novel would you like the Secret Victorianist to read next as part of my Neo-Victorian Voices series? Let me know—here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist.

5 Nineteenth-Century Women I Learned about at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington D.C.

A few weeks ago the Secret Victorianist was back in Washington D.C. (read about my first trip, in 2015, here). And so I took the opportunity to visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016.

Inside the museum

The museum’s historical galleries, where I spent the afternoon, take visitors through an extraordinary trip through time. You start on the subterranean levels of the building, which are dedicated to the origins of the slave trade and the unprecedented forced mass migration of Africans to the Americas, and make your way up towards the brighter and more spacious upper galleries, through displays which chart the United States’ history of racial oppression, from independence to civil war, to the civil rights movements of the mid-twentieth century to reflections on social justice today.

I was most impressed by how the curators had personalised and humanised narratives that stretch over centuries through the inclusion of quotes, personal stories, anecdotes and reflections. Visitors even have the chance to add their own voices to the collection—sharing their viewpoint on race and racism in America. And so today, on the blog, I wanted to highlight a few of the black nineteenth-century women I learned about and their contributions to American political, legal and social history:

Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813-1897)
Harriet Ann Jacobs was the author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl—an 1861 novel published under the pseudonym Linda Brent. The novel, based on Jacobs’s own experiences being born into slavery in North Carolina, shone a light on the sexual abuses suffered by many enslaved women.

A quote from Harriet: “When they told me my newborn babe was a girl, my heart was heavier than it had ever been before. Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women.”

Harriet Ann Jacobs

Harriet Tubman (~1822-1913)
Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in Maryland and escaped in her 20s via the Underground Railroad. She returned at least nine times to guide others to freedom, which earned her the nickname ‘Moses’ among abolitionists (since she was leading her people to the promised land). She worked for the Union Army during the Civil War and was the first woman to lead an armed expedition in the conflict.

A quote from Harriet: “I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say; I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”

Harriet Tubman

Susie Taylor (1848-1912)
Susie Taylor was the first African American army nurse working for the Union during the Civil War (a role she took on without pay). After the conflict she dedicated her life to teaching former slaves in Georgia and wrote a memoir—Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers—about her experiences.

A quote from Susie: “I had about forty children to teach, beside a number of adults who came to me nights, all of them so eager…to read above everything else.”

Susie Taylor

Ida B. Wells (1862-1931)
Born into slavery in Mississippi, Ida B. Wells went on to become a famous black activist. She was one of the founders of the he National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and is best known for her documentation of lynchings. She used journalism to highlight the systematic violence suffered by many African Americans and went on speaking tours in Europe to campaign for justice and equality.

A quote from Ida: “Our country's national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob.”

Ida B. Wells

Sarah Breedlove (known as Madam C. J. Walker) (1867-1919)
America’s first self-made woman millionaire was a black woman born in Louisiana to parents who had been slaves. She was the first of their children born after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. In the early twentieth century she established the Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company—a company dedicated to African American haircare. Fuelled by the business’ success, she became a prominent speaker, activist and philanthropist.

A quote from Sarah: “I am a woman who came from the cotton fields of the South. From there I was promoted to the washtub. From there I was promoted to the cook kitchen. And from there I promoted myself into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations...I have built my own factory on my own ground.”

Madam C.J. Walker

Do you know of any other museums you think the Secret Victorianist should visit next? Let me know—here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist.

Art Review: French Pastels—Treasures from the Vault at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Dandelions against tangled grass, the soft folds of a ballerina’s tutu, a farmyard quilted with snow—these are just some of the scenes nineteenth-century French painters bring to life in a Boston exhibition dedicated to a medium known for its difficulty to preserve, as well as its evocative sensory effects.

Dandelions, Jean-Francois Millet (1867-8)

Many of the Museum of Fine Art’s pastels are delicate and rarely seen on display but, even more than Impressionist paintings, they capture a moment in time and in French art history.

Monet used them to record a fleeting sunset and Degas to immortalise dancers at work (you can even see the former outline of limbs he’s corrected, ghostly appendages suggesting dynamic movement and the challenges of conveying this through a static image).

Dancers Resting, Edgar Degas (1881-5)

Works by Pissaro, Cassat, Manet and Renoir are also on display, as well as pastels by Millet, whose darker scenes demonstrate the versatility of the technique. In common parlance ‘pastel’ suggests a light and inoffensive colour-way, yet depth and texture are what’s all important in the works of these artists.

Farmyard by Moonlight, Jean-Francois Millet (1868)

The exhibition only encompasses two small rooms but the quality of the works more than makes up for the small size. It may be another decade before you have the chance to see these pastels in person again, so, if you’re in Boston, visit while you can.

Cottages in the Snow, Johan Frederik Thaulow (1891)

Which exhibitions focused on the nineteenth-century would you like the Secret Victorianist to review next? Let me know—here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist.