How to use this Page

It is time for some book confessions and I have got a real strange one to confess. Some people break spines, some read the last page first, mine is completely different. I first really noticed this while reading the Russian sci-fi classic Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky. I was half way through the […]

Each summer, Oxford University Press USA and Bryant Park in New York City partner for their summer reading series Word for Word Book Club. The Bryant Park Reading Room offers free copies of book club selections while supply lasts, compliments of Oxford University Press, and guest speakers lead the group in discussion. On Tuesday 8 July 2014, Rebecca Mead, author of My Life in Middlemarch, leads a discussion on George Eliot’s Middlemarch.

What was your inspiration for choosing Middlemarch?

I first read Middlemarch at seventeen, and have read it roughly every five years or so since, my emotional response to it evolving at each revisiting. In my forties, I decided to spend more time with the book and to explore the ways in which it seems to have woven itself into my life: hence my own book, My Life In Middlemarch.

Did you have an “a-ha!” moment that made you want to be a writer?

Not exactly, but getting my first story published in a national newspaper at the age of eleven in a contest for young would-be journalists—and getting paid for it—must have been a motivating factor.

Which author do you wish had been your 7th grade English teacher?

The best book I can think of that gets into the mind of a thirteen or fourteen year old is Huckleberry Finn, so please may I have Mark Twain?

What is your secret talent?

I used to be able to charm children with my ability to walk on my hands. Then I had my own child, and ever since my balance hasn’t been what it used to be. Luckily, my son doesn’t require charming.

With what word do you most identify?

“perhaps”

Rebecca Mead is a staff writer for The New Yorker. She is the author of My Life in Middlemarch and One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding. She lives in Brooklyn.

For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford’s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. You can follow Oxford World’s Classics on Twitter and Facebook. Read previous interviews with Word for Word Book Club guest speakers.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only literature articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: Rebecca Mead. Photo by Elisabeth C. Prochnik. Courtesy of Rebecca Mead.

The post Five questions for Rebecca Mead appeared first on OUPblog.

        

Related Stories

• On Great Expectations
• Rhetorical fireworks for the Fourth of July
• How much do you know about The Three Musketeers ?

 

Early a.m.: Middlemarch chapter 12.
Particularly struck by how skillfully Eliot builds tension in the first visit to Stone Court—Featherstone ordering Fred to get a letter from Bulstrode averring he doesn’t believe Fred made promises about paying debts out of his expected inheritance. How rapidly this escalates! Featherstone has already made it clear to his sister, Mrs. Waule, that he thinks the rumor is “stuff and nonsense…a got-up story” and he defends Fred against her insinuations. “Such a fine, high-spirited fellow is like enough to have [expectations].” But then after Mrs. Waule leaves, Featherstone whips out the accusations, almost teasingly, and the order to get a letter from Bulstrode has the air of a whim, at first. And suddenly there Fred is in a terribly awkward situation that is only going to get awkwarder, and eventually quite serious. It’s a gripping conflict, it puts us squarely in Fred’s corner while leaving us under no illusions that his imprudence (those fine high spirits) has helped put him in this pickle. Featherstone is utterly believable, a difficult person who enjoys being difficult, and who enjoys having scraps of power over people. All the rest of the morning my mind kept coming back to this scene, picking over how artfully Eliot created a major conflict (in plot terms) out of a fragment of gossip.

Midday: Finished Underfoot in Show Business.
Am now bereft: it was the last (well, the first for her, but the last for me) of Helene’s memoirs. I wish she’d written five more. The tales in this one: so rich! That first summer she spends at the artist’s colony—sitting down at the desk in her quiet studio and seeing Thornton Wilder’s name written on the plaque listing all the previous occupants of this cabin. He’d stayed there in 1937; she realizes he’d written Our Town in this very spot. For a moment it throws her—I completely understood that wave of comparative despair—until she registers that in the long list of writers under Wilder, there’s no one she ever heard of. This makes her feel better, and then she’s able to work.

And the early story about how she gets to NYC in the first place—winning a fellowship for promising young playwrights. Late 30s, the second year of the award. In the first year, the two winners were given $1500 apiece and sent out to make their way in the world. In Helene’s year, the TheatreGuild decides to bring the three fellowship winners (Helene is the youngest, and the only female) to New York to attend a year-long seminar along with some other hopeful playwrights. The $1500 prize pays her expenses during this year of what sounded very similar to a modern MFA program, minus the university affiliation: classes with big-name producers, directors, and playwrights. Lee Strasberg! An unprecedented opportunity for these twelve young seminar attendees. And the fruit of this careful nurturing? Helene, chronicling the story decades later, rattles off the eventual career paths of the students: there’s a doctor, a short-story writer, a TV critic, a couple of English professors, a handful of screenwriters.

“The Theatre Guild, convinced that fledgling playwrights need training as well as money, exhausted itself training twelve of us—and not one of the twelve ever became a Broadway playwright.

“The two fellowship winners who, the previous year, had been given $1500 and sent wandering off on their own were Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller.”

I laughed my head off when I read that.

Now, I suppose I should take this opportunity to meet some characters who would be able to solve one of life's eternal mysteries - like where all the odd socks go, or why cars/computers/washing machines never make that funny noise when someone useful is listening.

But I'm not going to do that, except possibly in the case of my last choice. No, in a spirit of human kindness, I'm first going to meet three characters who need a bit of friendly advice. Then I'm going to have fun. So here they are, in all their glory.

Romeo Romeo is so impulsive. He does the first thing that comes into his head, every time - and just look at the results! What you must do, Romeo, I shall say kindly, is just to take a little time to think. Verify the facts. Put yourself in the other person's place. Talk to people. Just make sure people are really dead before you go making histrionic speeches and taking poison that you really shouldn't have had in the first place.

Then I'm sure you'll find that life will go much more smoothly. There'll certainly be a lot less drama.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles Oh, Tess, Tess. You have so much going for you. You're very beautiful, er... you really are very, very beautiful... well, that's enough to be going on with. Now, the initial problem with Alec. Well, fair enough, probably not a lot you could have done about that. But Angel - really, did you have to let that sanctimonious twerp walk all over you? And, you see, if you stand up to him, then you won't be so desperate that you'll have to let Alec back in again. There must be some nice reliable shepherd or forester knocking about in the wilds of Wessex. Or maybe you could start up a small business. Whatever - just stay away from men whose names begin with 'A'.

Dorothea Brooke Actually, what I'd really like to do is talk to Tess and Dorothea (from Middlemarch) at the same time. I'm sure they'd be very good for each other. Of course, Dorothea is scarily clever, but where men are concerned, she's just as silly as Tess. I mean, marrying Casaubon - listen to me, Dorothea (may I call you Dot?), just DON'T DO IT! For goodness' sake, isn't it obvious? You have far more in common with Lydgate. Together, you can do lots of lovely good, and then he won't ruin poor old Rosamond's life either. Leave her to Will - they'll be good for each other.

Fangorn I don't want to give Fangorn relationship advice - I'm afraid there's not much I can do for him, except hope he finds his Entwife one day. No - I just want to see what he looks like. I loved the Lord of the Rings films, but I didn't quite feel convinced by the Ents, and I think they're lovely, so I'd like to see what they really look like. And if Aragorn or Legolas happens to be passing, so much the better.

Grannie Weatherwax I think Grannie Weatherwax may actually be dead, but I don't think this should be much of a problem in the Discworld. If it is, any other character will do. Lord Vetinari, perhaps? Might as well go to the top. Because I have to admit, interesting as any of the characters would be, what I'm really after is a free pass to the Discworld. So much to see, so much to do! When I come back, I'll write an article: 24 hours in Ankh-Morpokh or some such. I'm sure that would be far more interesting than yet another celeb interview.

So there we have it - and now I'm off to spend three days in the wilds of Oxfordshire with a bunch of Scattered Authors (who, obviously, won't be scattered at that point). Lovely!

Sometimes things happen for a reason although you may not know or realize it at the time. Only later on do you see some type of plan in the works. Or perhaps fate taking a hand.

As a youngster attending afternoon Hebrew School, it was an activity I dreaded or at least disliked. After a full day of regular classes at school, an hour of having to learn a new language wasn't something I relished. Watching TV was definitely a more interesting option. However, go I did, balking all the way and trying to come up with new and creative excuses to stay home. Most didn't work.

In addition to my mother's determination to ensure that I get some type of Jewish educational background, my teacher who also happened to be the school's principal, did everything in his power to make sure I attended classes. This included the actual physical act of coming to our home to find out the reason for my absence, on occasion unbeknownst to my mother. In restrospect I thought it was a conspiracy between them to prevent me from enjoying life as a kid.

Obviously, the experience left a lasting impression since I wrote and sold a number of short stories based on my experience.

Every year I bring out my favorite story, "The Dreidel King" a.k.a. "The Chanukah King" and post it in the various forums. For me it's a "feel good" story that transcends religion. Another story about how the simplest act of lighting Chanukah candles brought an unexpected response from seniors, comes a close second.

It occurred at this stage of my life that I have the makings of a children's/family play and will use the content of both stories to this end. There are few plays that I'm aware of focusing on Chanukah, especially aimed at children so it's a labor of love.

As I wrote - sometimes things happen for a reason. At least I'd like to believe it.