by Henry W. Longfellow
* * * *
Content 4/5
Poetic mastery 4/5
Literary truth 5/5

My estimation of this book is hopelessly prejudiced by the fact that I am in it. For me, the work was nearly devotional, as I struggled to learn the lessons from Mr. Kavanagh that another could not.

This work’s narrative content follows the struggles, loves, and destinies of a smattering of individuals and couples in a small Massachussetts town called Fairmeadow. The text jumps back and forth between these characters’ narrative strains as their paths converge, cross, or depart in the unavoidable, even fatalistic, yet not wholely tiresome way that is inevitable in small town life.

Longfellow tells their stories didactically and bluntly, but gently; we love the characters and breathe with them even as their unique idiosynchrasies — their humanity — become evident. We really care about them. By creating a story whose destiny of action communicates his message, Longfellow is freed to treat his characters tenderly.

Being a great poet, Longfellow penned a few lines here and there which capture the message of the entire work. I wonder whether Longfellow could have made this work a poem and not lost much from the tale. (The opening paragraphs illustrate this well.)

Again in this work, Longfellow elaborately but swiftly recreates just those details which are the spearpoint of any given powerful postoral scene, so that his words — true poet he is — have an economy that adds much more currency to every moment of reading. Thus his text’s scenic descriptions are appropriate, fresh, meanigful, vivid illustrations of the natural world that are true to the level that the reader remembers as well as imagines what he reads.

On another personal note, the intellectual enjoyment and stimulation in the relationship between Kavanagh and Churchill pleasantly reminded me of the discussions we have in person and on this blog.