We are what we make of ourselves, not what others make of us. This is a fundamental truth of human existence that seems, today, inarguable. And yet, for centuries, it was rejected for a more convenient truth, chiefly, that we are born into the fates and the circumstances that suit our personalities. If a man was born into a life of slavery, then that was what he was best suited for. Similarly, if a woman was born to a life of prostitution, then her character was capable of nothing else.
The appeal of this view is obvious, for it re-affirms to the holder that their world is exactly as it should be. To view the slave or the prostitute as we would, that they were forced into those circumstances by ill fortune and socioeconomic pressures beyond their control, would shatter the holder's conception of the world, would reveal to them the fundamental unfairness of their society and would call upon them to change a system that would have seemed to them monolithic. So they wrapped themselves in their biases and condemned untold millions to proscribed lives. This unbearable narrowness of life is beautifully, and humorously, captured in Jane Harris' outstanding novel.
The year is 1863 and life for a poor Irish girl, trying to make her way in Scotland, is far from easy. And yet, this is the lot of Bessy buckley, the Catholic daughter of a woman of ill repute and dark disposition who, alone and sixteen, is attempting to find a place that will allow her to get ahead in the protestant world. Made aware of a job opening in what she imagines to be a castle, young Bessy stumbles, starving, into an estate outside of Glasgow where she encounters the intellectual wife of a lawyer who offers Bessy everything she could want: a wage, a roof and all the food she could desire. Only, as with everything in life, there are certain...strings.
At first, Bessy imagines she can cope with the lady's odd requests. Beginning a daily diary and handing it over to the lady isn't terribly onerous. Nor is acceding to the lady's desire to take every conceivable measurement of her head and body. But when Bessy learns the truth, that she is little more than a pawn in a demeaning game, she's had enough. And her response will set into motion a chain of events that not even she can imagine.
A finalist for the Orange prize, The Observations is first rate historical fiction. Narrated in Bessy's mesmerizing brogue, it exquisitely animates 19th-century Britain in all its narrowminded, classist claptrap, revealing, through Bessy's sharpness of mind and wit, the depths of her society's idiocy. This, naturally, is thanks to the skillful and steady hand of its author, Ms. Harris, who possesses not only a keen eye for the entwined polarities of humor and tragedy, but the the often-times devastating consequences of cause and effect. She deserves, here, every bit of acclaim that has and will come to her.
Of the work's many virtues, though, none shine more brightly than the degree to which it demonstrates the travesty of a society, and a culture, that invests importance in classes and casts. The notion that we somehow deserve, or are tailored for, our lots in life is laughable now that we understand that we are born to a particular life, but that we are shaped by the circumstances into which we are born. Thus, if we are born of tailors, and our society makes it difficult or even impossible to rise above our station, then of course we too will be tailors. We have no other option. But rather than comprehending this obvious truth, Victorian Britain goes the other way, believing that people wind up in the occupations they are made for, awfully convenient for a society trying to justify its unimaginable disparities in income, privilege and opportunity. And yet, though society is inarguably damaged by this reality, the people are moreso. For the women who wish to be scientists are barred from that life. And the poor men with keen minds for finance and politics are cordoned off from the halls of power. The misery of people forced to endure lives unsuited to their natural talents is unimaginable.
The Observations has its shaky moments. Its plot is, at times, too tidy, with every piece fitting neatly into place, holding little of the messiness of real life. Moreover, its resolution strikes this reader has too hopeful for the time and place. And yet, even these flaws seem like small sacrifices in the name of irony and poetic justice, virtues that Ms. Harris puts to good purpose throughout.
A deeply enjoyable romp through a tragically narrow world. It won't soon be forgotten... (4/5 Stars)
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