Episode 22: Harriet Hume

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Welcome to One Bright Book! Join our hosts Frances, Rebecca, and Dorian as they discuss HARRIET HUME by Rebecca West, and chat about their current reading.

For our next episode, we will discuss THE WILD IRIS by Louise Gluck. We would love to have you read along with us, and join us for our conversation coming to you in March.

Episode #22

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Books mentioned:

You might also be interested in:

OED Entry for “Slut:” https://www.oed.com/dictionary/slut_n?tl=true

Rebecca’s Substack for #KateBriggs24: https://readingkatebriggs.substack.com/p/introducing-katebriggs24

Hear Roland Barthes Present His 40-Hour Course, La Préparation du roman, in French (1978–80): https://www.openculture.com/2014/07/listen-to-roland-barthes-deliver-his-40-hour-lecture-course-la-preparation-du-roman-in-french-1978-80.html

A collection of resources about Yiddish writer Chava Rosenfarb: https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/chava-rosenfarb

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3 thoughts on “Episode 22: Harriet Hume”

  1. Pingback: What I Read, January 2024 | Eiger, Mönch & Jungfrau

  2. I saved this until I started reading the book. I liked Harriet Hume and it grew on me once I stopped expecting it to be a conventional story. When I started reading it as a fable/fairy tale (with even the voice that one would read a fable) it really worked for me.

    I didn’t see it as a messy book, because I wasn’t looking for a neat answer. Whether Harriet was a good witch, a bad witch, the ghost of Christmas to come or some other fable character I didn’t need to know. What was important to me was her relationship with Arnold, and her dominance/strength in that relationship. I definitely saw Arnold as the weaker of the two.So thank you Frances for championing Harriet Hume and for this episode.

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  3. I’ll begin by saying — Hi, Dorian! This is Rich, from the book club we just did on The Sweet Dove Died. I mentioned Harriet Hume at the end of that book club and Dorian mentioned having covered it on the podcast — so I searched out the podcast. (And I can see that there are multiple episodes I need to listen too … I mean, any time, say, Willa Cather is mentioned I’m there! And many more — like Trollope!)

    Dorian and Rebecca were pretty ambivalent about the novel, which is fine. It’s a very strange novel. But I adored it. It is very close to my favorite novel of my last two years or so of reading — the only other contenders are Anna Karenina, David Copperfield, and the accumulated pleasure I’ve gotten from all the Trollope I’ve read. Perhaps the fact that I am a devoted reader of science fiction and fantasy prepared me — I had no idea what to expect but once I realized we were in a strange nonrealistic world I was there for it! I just think it’s a gorgeous and mysterious novel, and gravely underappreciated these days. (My review: https://richhorton314252.substack.com/p/deliriously-beautiful)

    From my perspective Arnold was a pretty terrible person. Harriet is by far his moral superior, and superior in most other ways, and the book, to some extent, shows that the power he attains is worthless, but the power inherent in Harriet’s self is enduring. I don’t quite see how Wells got his opinion of the book — but it seems clear that Wells’ views of women, and his treatment of them, were pretty awful.

    I’d suggest too that it is important to lean into the fantastical (or phantastical!) elements of the novel. They are a key part of it, and of its atmosphere. Note that it seems almost to be set in an alternative history — there is no real way to map the events of the novel to our history.

    Also, to my taste, West’s prose is absolutely gorgeous.

    Anyway, thanks for this! It looks great, and I’ll be exploring your podcasts some more!

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