Women's History Month Classics Corner: The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton; Edith Wharton's Savage and Sharp Exposure of Gilded Age New York

Women’s History Month Classics Corner: The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton; Edith Wharton's Savage and Sharp Exposure of Gilded Age New York

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: Sometimes a writer has to live within the world they write about to really understand it. They give the Readers an Inside Outsider's Perspective because they know that world and how the people within it think and operate. No one understood that concept more than Edith Wharton (1862-1937). The world that she lived in and wrote about was late 19th-early 20th century Upperclass New York society, the Gilded Age.

Similar to F. Scott Fitzgerald, a later author who also wrote about elite New Yorkers, Wharton viewed the behaviors of the people around her with a detachment, cynicism, and irony that showed outsiders that all was not pleasant inside these palatial homes, designer dresses, expensive jewelry, and marriages of wealth and convenience. This was a place that Wharton knew all too well.


Wharton was born Edith Newbold Jones, the last of three children, to George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander, a well-to-do New York City couple. (Reportedly her father's family was so well known for their affluence, that they actually inspired the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses.”) Her family traveled a great deal so Wharton studied many languages and read voraciously. (Though her mother forbade her from reading novels until she was an adult.)

Wharton's relationship with her parents was fractured. Her father was frequently away from the house and Edith almost never saw him. Her mother was critical especially when she started writing. An anecdote displaying her mother's cold nature is told: Edith presented her first novel to her mother when she was eleven. When she read a description in which the main character had to tidy up a drawing room before a guest's arrival, Mom simply said “Drawing rooms are always tidy” and returned the book to her. Dismayed, Edith wrote poetry until she was 15 and had her first work published, a translation of a German poem. Instead of bursting with pride, Edith's mother wanted her daughter's name removed considering a career as an author unsuitable for a girl of Edith's standards.


While Wharton was climbing towards a literary career, she had her debutante season. She married Edward “Teddy” Robbins Wharton, a Boston socialite in 1885. While he was from the same class, the marriage was extremely unhappy. Teddy was bipolar and was prone to rages, jealous tirades, and spending and behaving recklessly. When Teddy was at his worst in 1908, Wharton began an affair with Morton Fullerton, a journalist who was her intellectual equal. Teddy worsened until his disorder was declared incurable and Wharton divorced him in 1913.

Wharton traveled extensively and after her divorce settled in France. When WWI broke out, she became involved in relief efforts and was ultimately awarded the Legion D'Honneur.

Wharton was a prolific writer writing 85 short stories, 11 non-fiction books mostly on her travels, several poems, and 18 novels (Her first novel published when she was 40.) In 1921, she won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her book The Age of Innocence, becoming the first women to do so. Two years later, Willa Cather would replicate that feat with her book One of Ours.

Many of Wharton's novels feature rich characters in fancy homes and outsiders trying to find their way inside that rich life with the swells trying to keep them out. The Custom of the Country features a woman scheming her way into advantageous marriages and leaving a few bodies in her wake. Another novel, The Buccaneers concerns a group of American wealthy women who marry English aristocrats so the guys can get their fortune and the girls can get titles. (Think of it as Downton Abbey: The Early Years). Her Pulitzer winning novel The Age of Innocence explores an American upperclassman's scandalous romance with a countess who has been exiled from New York society because of her divorce. Then there's my favorite of Wharton's novels, her first, The House of Mirth. All of them feature characters who scheme, plot, bicker, and would gladly sell their mothers, children, and souls for a chance at the high life.

The House of Mirth is about a character like that: Lily Bart, a young woman who dreams of a life in high society but her attempts ultimately bring about her decline and self-destruction. It's interesting that I am reading The House of Mirth at the same time that I am reading Middlemarch and contrasting how different the protagonists are over money and their status as women. Dorothea Brooke maybe from a wealthy family but she is rebelling from it towards a life of meaning and service. Lily Bart longs to retreat into the life that she was reared for. Lily longs to be what Dorothea fought against: a decorative set piece for a rich man to marry. The House of Mirth is almost Middlemarch if Rosamond Vincy were the main character, albeit a more interesting multi-faceted Rosamond Vincy but still she and Lily Bart would have a lot in common.

Lily is the type of woman who was brought up for only two purposes: be beautiful and marry wealth. She has been aware of this fact ever since she was a child and saw her father lose his wealth partly because of her mother's frivolous spending. She hardly ever saw her father because he worked to get their fortune back and her mother was cold and unemotional (shades of Wharton's own upbringing). After her parent's deaths, she ended up in the care of a wealthy aunt, Julia Peniston who financially supports Lily but the two don't care to be around each other.

Lily is constantly aware that her life is one where she is held under scrutiny and her every movement is judged. Even when she sees a male friend alone in his hotel room, she has to invent a lie to an acquaintance rather than let any suspicion get out. This behavior leaves her to wonder “Why must a girl pay so dearly for her latest escape from routine? Why could one never do a natural thing without screening it behind a screen of artifice?”

Lily is aware that her upbringing leaves her no opportunities except to be a rich man's wife and at the age of 29, she is running out of time. She is anxious over how others perceive her so much that it becomes a central focus of her life. With good reason too as her every step is monitored by people whose malicious gossip can destroy faster than any conventional weapon.

One near engagement with a boring rich man, Percy Gryce, ends after he becomes aware of Lily's penchant for gambling by playing bridge and her presumed flirtations with men. He instead marries a dull homebody socialite with no past and not much of a personality.

Lily's gambling puts her so far in debt that a crooked financier, Gus Trenor, offers to pay off her debt- for a horizontal price. While she refuses, plenty of people have seen them together in public enough for rumors to spread and reach the ears of Trevor's wife, Judy who is Lily's best friend. Lily not only loses a potential husband but a close friendship as well.

A common theme in The House of Mirth is the double standards between the have and have-nots. Someone like Lily who is struggling to be accepted could have a ruined reputation if it even appears that she had stepped one toe out of line. However, the wealthy elite can behave however they want in their inner circle with minimal repercussions. Carry Fisher, a divorcee, lives as freely as she chooses and while is the source of much derision, she is able to laugh it off and live life according to her terms. Surprisingly, Carry is also one of the few genuinely kind honest characters in the book by drawing in new people that are on the fringes of society like the nouveau riche Wellington Brys and Simon Rosedale, a Jewish businessman trying to climb the ladder of wealth. Carry is also one of the few people that still gives Lily a warm reception after she is ostracized because of scandal.

Another person who is Teflon to gossip is Bertha Dorset, a bitchy socialite whom Lily tries to befriend but ends up becoming her nemesis. Bertha is the Queen Bee of New York's social set, the In Crowd Cheerleader/Female Bully all grown up. She has multiple affairs on her clueless husband, George and is skillful at covering them up. When Lily is unable to distract George long enough during a disastrous cruise to the Mediterranean, Bertha deflects the situation by accusing Lily of having an affair with her husband so no one will know Bertha was having an affair with her own lover, Ned Silverton.

Bertha's acknowledgement of Lily's ostracism leads to various ripples that cause Lily's final exile from the society she longed to be a part of. Even her aunt disinherits her in her will leaving Lily destitute working as a social secretary and later for a milliner.

At no point is Lily portrayed as a shallow superficial one-dimensional character. True she has her hang ups about clothes, fancy homes, and being part of the high society set. But she is fully aware that is all she is meant to be. Her background gives her very few alternatives to seek happiness beyond marrying wealth. She isn't like Dorothea Brooke who had the intelligence and drive but was born in the wrong time to use them. All Lily has is to be the Trophy Wife of a rich man and when that is taken from her, she has nothing to fall back on.

Lily questions her status quite often and wishes that she could be free to marry for love. Nowhere is this more evident than in her relationship with Lawrence Seldon, a lawyer who though has many wealthy friends is not himself rich. He pursues Lily for a time clearly in love with her, but Lily regrettably breaks him off because she needs to marry money.

She can't marry for love without financial security because she doesn't know how to do it. After Lawrence is convinced the rumors about her with other men are true and he temporarily leaves her, she is filled with genuine regret that she ended what could have been a good relationship.

Lily also shows a great deal of integrity. When a former servant and Rosedale use letters that expose a former affair between Lawrence and surprise surprise Bertha (another reason why Lily is on Bertha's “People to See Lives to Ruin” List) as potential blackmail, Lily refuses to do so.

She is too honest for the society that she wants to join and eventually abandons her. This abandonment ultimately leads to the end where Lily is left alone with only her regrets and a bottle of chloral hydrate.

The House of Mirth allowed Edith Wharton to expose the world in which she was raised for the cold, superficial, unfeeling world that it was. She revealed the people on the fringes were swallowed whole by the callous and malicious people on the inside. If they couldn't join, they would be trampled underneath and Lily Bart was.

Women's History Month Classics Corner: Middlemarch by George Eliot; George Eliot's Magnum Opus About the Reality of Dashed Dreams and Unhappy Marriages

Women’s History Month Classics Corner: Middlemarch by George Eliot; George Eliot's Magnum Opus About the Reality of Dashed Dreams and Unhappy Marriages

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews


Spoilers: I admit I enjoy reading George Eliot after Jane Austen.

If Austen's novels are the frilly romantic girl who gushes over love songs and poems, dreams of Prince Charming (or Mr. Darcy), and wonders why life isn't a rom com, then Eliot's novels would be her prickly older bookworm sister who reminds her about the divorce statistics, is concerned with world issues, and maybe finds a partner but usually while she is building her career or becoming involved in social causes.

That being said, I like George Eliot better. One of my all-time favorite novels by her is undoubtedly her greatest work, her Magnum Opus, Middlemarch. Contrasted with other books written by women at the time, Middlemarch isn't overly concerned with romance. Romance is in it sure, but that isn't the main focus. The focus instead is on unhappy marriages, socioeconomic struggles, academic research, political reform and how various characters of different roles of society get along with each other.

To begin with, let's talk about Middlemarch's author herself, George Eliot (1819-1880).

George Eliot, born Mary Anne Evans, was the fifth child of Robert and Christina Evans. Robert was the manager of an estate. It was at the estate's vast library where Evans, a voracious reader, studied Classics and various languages which would have been forbidden for a girl in her time period. Evans had little formal education and was mostly self-taught by this reading.

While Evans was raised in an Anglican household, beginning in her late teens she made friends with various agnostic freethinkers. She began to question her religion putting herself at odds with her father. She also had arguments with her brothers who received the formal education that she had been deprived of because of her gender. Her animosity towards her brothers may have been the inspiration for her novel, The Mill on the Floss which concerns the rivalry between the cruel, Tom Tulliver and his bookish sister, Maggie.

After her father died, Evans visited Geneva and embarked on a writing career in which she chose the name George Eliot. She chose the pseudonym because of her concerns that she would not be taken seriously as a female author and she wanted to maintain anonymity. Eliot produced several essays, translations, various short stories and poems, and 7 novels. Her novels concerned themselves with social issues, religion, class conflicts, Antisemitism, and gender roles things women normally did not write about at the time.

Besides her writing career, Eliot's personal life was a rebellious one as well. She embarked on an over 20 affair with George Henry Lewes, a married editor. Despite his unhappy marriage and his closeness to Eliot, Lewes did not divorce his wife. Nonetheless, he and Eliot were together until his death in 1870 making the two the subject of much scandal and innuendo.

After Lewes's death, Eliot married the much younger, John Cross. However Cross was deeply troubled and attempted to jump from their hotel to the Grand Canal in Rome while on their honeymoon. He survived but the two returned to England where Eliot died of throat infection and kidney disease in 1870.

Eliot’s life is one of a woman who struggled to find her place in the world and rebelled against the constraints of society’s standards towards women. She was able to take charge of her life and be her own person which is what makes Middlemarch so fascinating.

While Eliot was a rebel to the end, her characters try to be. They try to be more than what 19th century rural England expects from them. The most iconoclastic characters are the two leads: Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate.

Dorothea in particular has an uphill battle becoming her own person. She is one of two sisters who are adopted by their uncle Arthur Brooke. Instead of looking forward to marriage and gushing over pretty jewelry as her sister, Celia does, Dorothea is a well-read intellectual woman who dreams of a life of meaning.
She  wants a life of study and active service to the poor. She designs cottages on her uncle's estate so the poor workers can have better equipped, safer, affordable, and comfortable homes. She reads great works and longs to have someone with which to discuss them.

Dorothea feels stifled by the society around her and is often ridiculed for her plainness and her ambitions. Even her sister is confused by her. Celia mocks her cottage plans as “fads” and wonders why she turned down a proposal from the wealthy but conventional Sir James Chettam. Dorothea is an outsider “a cygnet among the ducklings” Eliot tells us.

Eliot compares her protagonist to Saint Theresa “foundress of nothing, who's loving heartbeats and long after an unattainable goodness tremble off and are dispersed among hindrances instead of hindering in some long-recognizable deed.” In other words, Dorothea is someone who longs to do something greater than what she is brought up to do.

If she lived in modern day, Dorothea would be great as a college professor, or an architect who designs houses for lower income families, or the director of a non profit organization that assists people with housing and education. But alas it is the 19th century and she is only raised to be someone's wife. She is stifled in her role as nothing more than a decorative set piece in a man's life.

So Dorothea becomes engaged to Edward Casaubon, an elderly clergyman who is forever researching The Key to All Mythologies. The marriage is unwise to all but Dorothea. Dorothea hopes to become a helpmate to Casaubon by studying various languages, taking notes, researching and maybe publishing their knowledge to the world. She isn't drawn to him physically so much as she is mentally. She believes that he understands her and longs to be his pupil, secretary, and oh yes wife.

What Dorothea gets instead is a man who is cruel and abusive. Casaubon hides his research and does very little with it never wanting it to be published or read by the masses that he feels are beneath him including his wife. He verbally abuses Dorothea when she suggests studying under him and mocks her desires to learn and help others. Far from her intellectual savior, instead Casaubon is as close minded as the rest of the society that Dorothea longed to escape from.

Finding no acceptance from her husband, Dorothea finds friendship in Casaubon's cousin, Will Ladislaw, a free thinking artist. While Will is just as brilliant as Dorothea, she isn't just looking for a fellow intellect though that is a bonus. She becomes aware that she is a woman with emotion, desires, and longings. She and Will become enamored with each other.

While Casaubon is usually unemotional, he manages to choke out enough jealousy that he alters his will out of spite by leaving the estate to Dorothea but if she marries Will, she forfeits the estate entirely.

Ironically, it is only after Casaubon's death that Dorothea becomes the woman that she aspired to become by designing cottages and donating money to various causes. However, she can't ignore her feelings for Will and has a tough decision to make.


Another Middlemarch outsider struck with an unhappy marriage is Tertius Lydgate, a young doctor who arrives to shake things up in the village. While he is seeking a typical marriage with a pretty wealthy bride, he longs to do some good by treating the poor, building a hospital, and conducting scientific research.
Many of his views are held under suspicion by a public that is so reactionary that they question anything that is new. Like Dorothea, Tertius wants to become a different person but is hampered by societal restrictions.

These restrictions are caused by his choice of a wife in the beautiful superficial Rosamond Vincy. Their courtship in which Tertius becomes romantically involved with Rosamond despite objections from her family seems almost like a commentary on Austen's work in which contrivances keep the couple apart until the end in which the couple has a fairy tale wedding. Middlemarch however goes beyond the wedding to show that married life is not what they expected and instead of a cutesy in love couple, Tertius and Rosamond are stuck with opposing views and financial struggles.

Like Dorothea, Tertius thought that he was getting the perfect spouse. He wanted a wife to run his home, connect him to Middlemarch society, and provide the seed money for his medical practice. What he got instead was a Narcissist who spends money on furniture, clothing, jewelry and just about anything else she can put her pretty little hands on.

Rosamond is a lot like Dora Spenlow David Copperfield's first wife, a spoiled childlike fool who is completely unprepared for the realities of adulthood and marriage. Like children do, she wants everything in front of her and is not used to being rejected. Her spoiled attitude and tantrums put her at odds with her husband who resorts to gambling and doing business with shady characters to pay off the debts that Rosamond puts him through.

Above all like Dorothea who wanted intellectual satisfaction, but got emotional desolation in her marriage to Casaubon, Tertius has to compromise his values. Instead of helping poor people, he has to treat and charge wealthy people to keep up with Rosamond's spending sprees.

There are several other subplots throughout the book that all carry the themes of aspirations that are dashed by reality. There is Rosamond's feckless brother Fred, an immature wastrel who realizes too late that superficial charm and idiocy can only go so far as he pursues the poor virtuous Mary Garth. Mary works for a dying cantankerous old man, Featherstone whose greedy relatives gather around him waiting for him to die so they can inherit his money. Sir James Chettam's pursuit of Dorothea is ended by her marriage to Casaubon so he settles for Celia almost as a rebound. Casaubon's research into the Key to All Mythologies is hampered by his xenophobic desire to tie everything to Christian doctrine so he ignores any research that doesn't fit his narrow view. Not to mention his discoveries of current findings are prematurely ended because he can't understand German, the language in which the findings are written, and he is too proud to get assistance. Then there is Dorothea and Celia’s Uncle Arthur who is running for Parliament on a Reform platform that gets shouted down and insulted by his constituency.

All of the characters in Middlemarch have dreams and aspirations to be something more or greater than what they are. While some succeed, most are dashed or altered. The characters compromise values, integrity, finances, and their ideals to settle into lives that were far from what they wanted or expected.

Even when characters get married, there is much tongue clicking and questioning about whether it's the right thing or not. This leaves the ending as somewhat ambiguous when the Reader learns that Tertius and Dorothea become shells of the people they wanted to be for the sake of the conventions that they longed to change or fight against but instead have to settle.

While her characters especially Dorothea could be mirrors of Eliot, the contrast between Eliot and her protagonist cannot be ignored. Dorothea might have been Eliot if she wasn't a writer and didn't have a way to express her creative desires. If Eliot didn't have the courage to live her life according to her principles and not other people's standards, she might have become Dorothea trying to find outlets through her marriages but ending up unfulfilled and dissatisfied. Dorothea Brooke went one way and her author, George Eliot thankfully went another.

New Book Alert: Addictarium: The War Stories Chronicles by Nicole D'Settemi; A Disturbing, Confusing but Unforgettable Novel of Addiction and Recovery

New Book Alert: Addictarium: The War Stories Chronicles by Nicole D'Settemi; A Disturbing, Confusing but Unforgettable Novel of Addiction and Recovery

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: Nicole D'Settemi's Addictarium is different from your typical novel about drug addiction. Most of the novels focus on the addict, how they got started, and why they turned to drugs. The Reader will learn about their addiction and how it destroyed the addict and their friends and family. Then there will be the obligatory near-death rock bottom moment when the addict realizes that they need help and enter recovery where they then emerge a better stronger person who now vows to live a clean drug free life.

Well Addictarium is not that kind of book. Nicole D'Settemi's disturbing and at times confusing book begins where most books about addiction ends. It's not so much about the addiction as it is about the recovery from it and what happens when the people who are assigned to help the addict recover are worse than they are.

Danielle Martino is a heroin addict. The prologue and first chapter speed through her addiction where she moves from overachiever upper middle class student to troubled, sick, and paranoid addict in the space of a few paragraphs.

There are some pretty graphic moments such as when she turns to prostitution to feed her addiction and when the effects turn her partially blind before she decides to seek recovery.

Mostly, D'Settemi focuses on Danielle's discovery of The Village, an upscale rehabilitation center which promises compassionate care to its patients. Finding nothing to lose except her addiction, Danielle checks in.


Most of the book deals with the power struggles Danielle has with the counselors and other patients as well as her longing to return to heroin. Many of the patients have hang ups of their own. After Danielle breaks up with her boyfriend on the outside and her best friend leaves, she becomes involved with Sasha, a female patient in a romance that is emotional, moving, but at the same time tense and borderline obsessive. Things get even more heated when Sasha leaves and the feelings of abandonment consume Danielle to the point where she wants to start using again.

As bad as the patients are, the staff of the Village are just as disturbing. There are many restrictions and rules which the patients question but are ordered to follow. Many of the counselors treat the patients with contempt and disdain rather than real concern for their well-being and recovery. Compassionate care apparently doesn’t really exist in this nightmare rehab dojo.

Of particular notice are the behaviors of two counselors. One, Nehemiah takes advantage of female patients before he gets fired for having a sex and drugs ring on the side. There are also other staff members who break boundaries with the patients.

While Nehemiah and some of the others are clear jerks, even the most helpful can be the most harmful. Danielle becomes obsessively infatuated with her primary counselor Angel. She thinks about him when he isn't around. She constantly worries about what he would think. He is trying to help her recover from her addiction but she confuses his concern for love.

Rather than let her down gently, Angel encourages her behavior to the point that after he leaves his position, the two embark on an affair. There are some genuinely sweet moments where Danielle wants to give up and Angel encourages her to keep going.

However, they are tempered with the realization that their romance began when Angel was Danielle's counselor and that while Danielle pursued him, she was mentally ill. Angel should have resisted. It was on him to end it. Every time they are together, this Reader wants to scream “Dude! Boundaries!”

Also while he is more tender than Nehemiah, Angel is still using her in his own way and comes off no better than he is. He does not respect the counselor-patient link and believes that he is doing right by becoming involved with her. She needs someone to take care of her and he needs someone to take care of. It makes you wonder if they would still be together, if she recovers and he isn't her caregiver.


With patients,staff, and counselors looking out for themselves it's no wonder that Danielle has a hard time with her recovery. It is also no surprise when she is given a bag of heroin and succumbs once more to her addiction finding no acceptance in sobriety.

There are parts in the narrative that are confusing possibly purposely so. Characters overlap. The setting moves from the Village to the streets without any meaningful transition. It's hard to follow the actions of the plot when the setting and characters are lost.

This makes Danielle comes across as an Unreliable Narrator which could possibly be the point. Do the other patients have emotional problems or does Danielle see them that way? Are the staff really that cold or is Danielle resisting their attempts to help them justifying it in her head that they never wanted to help? Nehemiah was fired but was he a pervert or did Danielle believe patient's gossip and innuendo that he was? What about Angel? Did he really overstep his boundaries as a counselor or did Danielle believe he did?

Because of the confusion within Danielle's narration, the ending where she returns to therapy is ambiguous. Will she finally recover or will she fall into the same pattern and regress? The only one who can answer those questions is Danielle herself.

Weekly Reader: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon; Top Notch Historical Romance and Fantasy is Undone By It's Inflated Reputation

Weekly Reader: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon; Top Notch Historical Romance and Fantasy is Undone By It's Inflated Reputation

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: This is one of those books that I heard about so much that I had to read it. Several members of various Facebook groups talked it up. The series is quite popular. It even ended up as #2 in PBS The Great American Read countdown only under To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. With a reputation like that, you have to wonder how good is it?


Is Outlander great or is it….not? Well it's complicated.


Author Diana Gabaldon deserves credit for not only making one historical fiction but two in one. The story is a Fantasy Romance about a lovelorn time traveler going into the past and meeting the man of their dreams in the past. (Is there any other kind?) But instead of a woman from modern day, she is from WWII.

Claire Beauchamp-Randall is a nurse in 1946 rekindling her marriage to historian, Frank Randall. The two have been married for seven years but have been apart for six while Frank fought in the War and Claire tended to soldiers. They are on their second honeymoon in Scotland where Frank is researching his family history and hopefully they could do a little more. Instead of getting a relaxing vacation, things get kind of weird.

First Frank reports seeing a ghostly figure in a kilt. Then while attending a ceremonial ritual by the local women, Claire hears the stones in a sacred grove scream. Suddenly, she is transported to 17th century Scotland and she's taken by a group of British soldiers only to be rescued by a group of Highlanders.

Her first assignment is to treat Jamie Fraser, who is injured. While she heals his wound using modern medicine (at least WWII era modern medicine), she and Jamie develop an understanding bond. The bond strengthens though she is held under suspicion as a “Sassenach” or Outlander, an Englishwoman and possibly a spy for the English. The suspicion reaches the ears of the clan head who says that the only way to waylay suspicions towards Claire is for her to marry a Scotsman and what do you know there is a Scotsman available, one whom she just healed and already developed a bond.


The multiple parts to the story work well together. Gabaldon should be commended for having a handle on writing two historical periods and she shows great details on both of them.

Gabaldon certainly did her homework in researching 17th century Scotland. She writes the Jacobite conflicts and clan wars in ways that are more engaging than textbooks. She does a commendable job of capturing the various details such as court hearings where the guilty party could be sentenced to a flogging but can find a champion to take the flogging for them. She gets everything from the clothing (no Scotsman don't wear much under there), to health care (sometimes rely on leeches and potions though Claire offers a few modern touches as newly appointed “physician”) to status of women (marginalized, considered as daughters and wives, though some unmarried women have official positions) right.

While less explored than 17th century Scotland, Gabaldon also captured the post-WWII era really well. She explores what it's like for long separated couples reunite only to discover that they have little in common. She also explores the lives of nurses who had to live through treating soldiers who had traumatic experiences as well as what the nurses learned from them. In one humorous moment, Claire accidentally uses some colorful language that she picked up from soldiers in front of some guests.

The Fantasy aspect flows nicely but is very open ended. The ghostly visitation and the ritual at the beginning of Claire's journey suggests some supernatural reason for her trip as though she were sent back to change something though this is never resolved why at least in the first book. The awareness of Claire's presence in the past comes to focus when she is responsible for the death of someone and is concerned that she could have ended someone's family line prematurely.

There is also an interesting twist when Claire encounters another time traveler. (She recognizes the smallpox vaccination scar.) The other time traveler has already settled into Scottish life by having an active love life and a reputation of being a witch because of her foreknowledge of events (actually historic research.). Once Claire picks up the habit she too is accused of being a witch. While this plot twist resolution is saved for a later book, it is intriguing that this has happened before.

While I am not a big Romance fan, the Romance holds up pretty well mostly because Gabaldon treats the lovers like real people despite the conventional stumbling blocks. Claire is a strong willed opinionated woman for any era and stands out in the 20th and 17th centuries. She is able to carve an identity for herself as a healer and adviser.

While some may criticize her having an extramarital affair, it squeaks by when you consider that she and Frank had been separated for some time and had spent little time together.

Jamie also is a good character. He has the standard man of his era attitude where he behaves brutally and believes that the man is the Lord of his castle, but thankfully those aspects are minimal. It helps that he was injured to begin with. He also shows a very chivalrous nature by taking punishments for a local girl and explains that he is on the run after fighting soldiers when his sister was attacked. He and Claire have great chemistry in their moments together that flow naturally from friendship to romance.

Thankfully, Claire and Jamie are an engaging couple that takes them through the typical clichés of romance. There is the jealous other woman who has sights on the male half and could cause trouble for the duo. There is the dangerous sadistic other man who fancies the female half and in this case the male as well. Then of course there is the classic misunderstanding which puts the two at each other's throats until things are resolved with a "kiss and make up" passage. It is nothing new and we have seen it before.

Outlander is a great book but is it deserving of the #2 spot of favorite books of all time? Over books like Jane Eyre, The Outsiders, and even though I'm not crazy about the series but I recognize it's impact and influence on getting children to read, Harry Potter? While it is good and has plenty of great qualities I will have to say no. Many of the Romance plot points are clichéd and present nothing new. Even the idea of a modern woman going back in time and receiving a lover from the past has been done in books like Jude Devereux's A Knight in Shining Armor and the movie, Kate and Leopold.

Outlander is a popular book and that's not a bad thing. It has every reason to be popular but there is not enough to consider it a classic.

At least not yet anyway.

Weekly Reader: The Twilight Zone Companion by Marc Scott Zicree; Thorough Guide To The Fifth Dimension

Weekly Reader: The Twilight Zone Companion by Marc Scott Zicree; Thorough Guide To The Fifth Dimension




By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers (for the series not so much for the book):“Submitted for your approval one Julie Sara Porter, Occupation: Bookworm. She has made a living reading and reviewing books but now her world is about to be changed by that box known as the television. For she will soon be reviewing a book on a TV program, a book that will take her right into the Twilight Zone.”

Oh come on like you didn't think I was going to start my review like this.

One of my all-time favorite series is the Twilight Zone and when I say The Twilight Zone, I refer to its various incarnations. From the original classic series created by Rod Serling that ran from 1959-1964, to the 1983 movie, to the two revivals from 1985-1989 and 2002-2003. It's a series that is filled with strange, unique, scary, and sometimes baffling stories that reflect social issues in a new way and isn't afraid to update itself for each generation.

I am also looking forward to the upcoming revival produced and hosted by Academy Award winning screenwriter (2018 Get Out), Jordan Peele for CBS All Access. In honor of this revival and of the original Zone's 60th anniversary, I am going to enter the world of television. I am reviewing The Twilight Zone Companion by Marc Scott Zicree, an exhaustive comprehensive guide to the “other dimension of not only sight and sound but of mind.”


To begin reviewing The Twilight Zone, we have to begin with its Fearless Leader, Rod Serling. Zicree describes Serling's boyhood in Syracuse, NY where his life consisted of reading Wonder Tales, Amazing Stories, and other pulp magazines and being center stage. His brother recalled various family trips in which their father commanded that nobody was to say a word until Serling stopped talking which he chattered the entire way.

Many of Serling's experiences became templates for future episodes.

Serling enlisted in the U.S. Army Paratroopers and fought in WWII's Pacific Theater. While he didn't speak much about his experiences, many of his strongest anti-war episodes of the Twilight Zone such as “Quality of Mercy” (in which a temperamental American lieutenant sees life through the eyes of a Japanese soldier) and “The Purple Testament” (in which a soldier sees a light over the faces of people who are about to die) take place in the Pacific Theater.

Many of his Twilight Zone episodes that deal with anti-Semitism such as “Death's Head Revisited” (in which a former Nazi commandant revisits Dachau only to be haunted by the ghosts of people he tortured and killed) and “He's Alive” (in which a Neo-Nazi, played by a very young Dennis Hopper, receives advice from a ghostly benefactor) reflect not only Serling's Jewish upbringing but also his liberal humanitarian values.

Serling married Carol Kramer in 1948 and they had two daughters. (Carol would later cameo in Twilight Zone: The Movie as an Airline Passenger in the “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” segment.)

While Serling was described as a loving husband and father, he also was a workaholic and wrote into the early morning. Though undiagnosed, he appeared to have symptoms of depression which filtered into various episodes. Some of them like “Walking Distance” (in which a businessman returns to his childhood) and “A Stop at Willoughby” (in which a man sees an old fashioned small town on his train route) feature a nostalgic longing for the past that Serling couldn't break from.

Serling began writing for radio programs like Dr. Christian then moved on to television shows like Hallmark Hall of Fame, Suspense, Studio One, and Playhouse 90. By far his biggest pre-Twilight Zone success is Playhouse 90’s “Requiem for a Heavyweight”, a teleplay about an over the hill boxer (Jack Palance). Requiem won 5 Emmys including Best Teleplay, Best Single Show of the Year, and Best Actor for Palance. Serling would return to the boxing world in Zone episodes like “Big Tall Wish” (in which a boy wishes for his favorite boxer to win a match) and “Steel” (in which robots are created to box).


Unfortunately, Serling's success put him at the mercy of sponsors and censors. Many of his scripts were chopped to bits. One script based on the Emmett Till murder devolved into a paint by numbers whodunnit. Another script featured senators but Serling was told to cut segments about current issues. Serling was irate. “In retrospect, I probably would have had a much more adult play had I made it science fiction, put it in the year 2057, and peopled it with robots.”

One could almost see the proverbial lightbulb shining over Serling's head. Serling's bad experiences working in television would find its way in the Zone episode, “The Bard” in which William Shakespeare is summoned to modern day by a screenwriter and runs afoul of network censors, sponsors, and an egocentric Method actor (an obvious parody of Marlon Brando played by Burt Reynolds).

The series title is a matter of debate. While there is an Air Force term called the Twilight Zone where pilots cannot be seen on the horizon, Serling stated that he didn't know that and he made it up himself. Now the Twilight Zone has become a definition of being caught between fantasy and reality.

The Twilight Zone's first official episode was “Where is Everybody” in which a man finds himself alone in a small town. But the pilot episode “The Time Element” actually debuted on The Desilu Playhouse. While Serling's narration is such an important part of the series that it would be hard to imagine it without him, this was originally not the case. The pilot was hosted by Desi Arnaz which did not sit well with the viewers (“Go Home Desi,” said one critic.) Studio executives discussed whether to get a big name like Orson Welles. Finally, they settled on Serling.

The Twilight Zone Companion is a comprehensive book that covers not only Serling but various other people involved like co-writers, Richard Matheson, author of I Am Legend, Other Kingdoms and other fantasy/science fiction novels and Charles Beaumont, short story writer. Beaumont's story is particularly heartbreaking as he had a troubled abusive childhood and a dour pessimistic nature that filtered through his episodes such as “Perchance to Dream” (in which a man whose dreams are haunted by a woman trying to kill him) and “The Howling Man” (in which an order of monks imprison a man who they believe is the Devil).

Beaumont was also very frail. He drank a lot of alcohol, worked too hard, and had frequent headaches. In 1964, he was diagnosed with Pick's Disease or Alzheimer's Disease at age 35. His health deteriorated until he died in 1967. His son Christopher described him as prematurely aged. “He was like a ninety-five year old man and looked ninety-five and was in fact ninety-five by every calendar except the one on your watch.” Science fiction author William F. Nolan compared Beaumont to the title character in Beaumont's Zone episode “Long Live Walter Jamison” about an immortally youthful man who fades away in front of his antagonists. “Like Walter Jamison (Beaumont) just turned to dust.”

Each Twilight Zone episode is recalled with cast and crew lists, photos, transcripts of the opening and closing narrations, summaries, interviews with cast or crew members, trivia, and Zicree's reviews of the quality of the episodes.

Twilight Zone fans will recall favorite moments. We recall when Burgess Meredith played a bookworm who breaks his glasses in “Time Enough at Last” (which Meredith said that he “got recognized for more than any other role.”) Meredith was one of Zone's most prolific guest stars appearing in four episodes and narrating the 1983 film.

No one will forget the moment when the bandages were taken off a woman to reveal a beautiful woman in a world of pig-like humanoids in “Eye of the Beholder.”. (Two women played the main role, Maxine Stuart under the wraps because of her harsh voice. Donna Douglas, Elly May Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies played her when she was revealed. When the episode was remade in 2002 Molly Sims played the role all the way through.)

A Fifth season episode, “Number Twelve Looks Just Like You” could be considered an answer to “Eye of the Beholder” featuring a plain 19-year-old girl, played by Collin Wilcox, being forced to conform to the societal standards of beauty. To show the youthfulness of the characters, Suzy Parker, the woman cast as the girl's mother was only three years older than Wilcox.

Among the most popular episodes is “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” in which William Shatner plays a nervous man who sees a gremlin on an airplane wing. Similar to many of the other episodes, this came from a real fear. Matheson, writer of the episode, said that he got the idea while on a flight. He looked out the window and wondered what would happen if he saw a man on the wing. He wrote the original short story and teleplay to the episode. The episode was so popular that it was remade for the 1983 movie with John Lithgow in the lead and in the upcoming series starring Adam Scott. (Fun Fact: An episode of Third Rock from the Sun paid tribute to the Twilight Zone episodes when Shatner's character said that he saw something on the wing of an airplane. Lithgow responds: "The same thing happened to me!")

Another popular episode that many remember is “It's a Good Life” in which Bill Mumy played a boy with omnipotent powers and no control over them so he wishes people that make him mad “to the cornfield.” Mumy also starred in a number of episodes, appeared in a cameo in the movie's remake to “It's a Good Life” starring Jeremy Licht as Anthony and a pre-Bart Simpson Nancy Cartwright as his sister. Mumy played Anthony again in a sequel episode for the 2002 version in which Anthony learns his daughter, Audrey (played by Mumy's real life daughter, Liliana) inherited his abilities as well as the ability to bring things back from the cornfield.

While that's a good episode, another great one starring Mumy was “In Praise of Pip” where Mumy plays the young version of a dying soldier who spends one final day with his single father.( Jack Klugman who also starred in four episodes of Twilight Zone). “In Praise of Pip” is one of the earliest mentions of the Vietnam War on television as Pip's father Max Phillips said, “My kid is dying in some place called South Vietnam. There isn't supposed to be a war there.” Oddly enough the episode was originally set in Laos, but Serling was told that there were no official troops in Laos.He was told that U.S. Forces were in “an advisory capacity” in South Vietnam.

Zicree's reviews of the episodes are revealing. However he seems to dislike more episodes than he likes. The fourth and fifth seasons in particular have more negative reviews than positive leaving the Reader to wonder if you dislike more episodes than you like can you really call yourself a fan of the show especially when it's an anthology? But of course Serling himself said that one-third were great, one-third were average, and one-third were terrible.

Zicree also goes into the post-career of Serling and the franchise. Serling hosted the show Night Gallery which he wasn't involved behind the scenes as much. He died in 1975 of complications after open heart surgery though his widow and others also saw his health diminish because of his workaholic nature and frequent smoking.

Zicree also writes about the 1983 movie and the deaths of actors Vic Morrow, Myca Dinh Lee, and Renee Chen in a helicopter accident when it was filmed at night. Lee and Chen were also underage and worked after hours. A jury acquitted director, John Landis and other key members of the crew.

He also writes of the ‘80’s revival. Instead of insisting that remakes are bad and finding nothing to like, Zicree wrote that the quality of the ‘80’s episodes were equal to or better than those of the original series. He cites episodes like “Nightcrawlers” (in which a Vietnam vet's war ghosts come to life and wreak havoc on a diner), “Her Pilgrim Soul” (in which the spirit of a young girl appears in a holographic field and bonds with the scientist who finds her), and “Paladin of the Lost Hour” (in which an elderly man has possession of the last hour of eternity inside a small pocket watch.) as memorable.

One of the most provocative and memorable episodes of the ‘80’s, and this reviewer's favorite, is “Dead  Run” where a trucker (Steve Railsbeck) receives a job to ship souls into Hell. He then finds that the Afterlife is run by the Moral Majority/Alt-Right and souls who are innocent are being taken. The episode won an award from GLAAD because one of the souls that the trucker helps get into Heaven is that of a gay man (John De LaMay).

The Twilight Zone Companion ends before the 2002 version and naturally no mention of the upcoming one. People wonder why does the show keep getting remade. Well as long as there are social issues, fear of the unknown, and stupid and cruel people doing stupid and cruel things there will always be a need for that place outside of space and time known as, The Twilight Zone.