Next novella

Has anyone here read "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros? I was thinking of that for our next project. We could shoot for discussing it on Monday, May 25.

A chill

Why is her name "Stone"?

Also, the first part of the book is called "A Cold Sun," plus there's a literal reference to a March evening where Paolo remarks that he doesn't like to be outdoors after the sun has lost its heat. "I hate a cold sun," he says, and one feels that his words allude also to his aging mistress, whose name unfortunately suggests "stone-cold."

I can't really make out how Williams is using this imagery, because Mrs. Stone really seems, maybe to a fault, the opposite of cold and hard. Any thoughts?

Cocktails and motion pictures

I'm a sucker for any kind of food or drink mentioned in a book, especially if it has a glamorous ring like "negroni." Did anyone else want to try the cocktail that Mrs. Stone and Paolo drank? I found this lovely recipe that calls for burnt orange. My real question, though, relates to a piece of dialog between Mrs. Stone and the contessa. The contessa is warning Mrs. Stone that Paolo is going to try to touch her heart with a sob story about a priest and a friend's lost money. Mrs. Stone says "I may be touched, but not for ten million lire! You see, Americans aren't as romantic as their motion pictures ..."

"What a pity they aren't," said the contessa sincerely.

I like how Williams added the "sincerely" here, like we couldn't just assume that she expressed herself sincerely. He had to point out that it was a genuine feeling, not meaningless small talk. The sentiment sort of endeared her to me. Did you have any reaction to it?

Original Negroni Recipe
Ingredients:
- 1 oz gin
- 1 oz Campari
- 3/4 oz Sweet Vermouth

Combine all ingredients in an ice filled shaker. Shake until well chilled and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a burnt orange. To make a burnt orange, cut about a 1 1/2 inch by 1 inch peel off a ripe navel orange. Be sure to get just the skin and as little of the pith as possible. Holding the orange peel between thumb and index fingers with skin facing out, hold a lit match over the glass and with the orange peel about an inch away from the flame squeeze the peel quickly and firmly between your fingers. When done correctly, a burst of flame will come from the oils being released from the peel leaving an aroma and adding a note of orange to the cocktail. Simply drop the twist in the drink.

This Italian concoction was invented in the early 1900s. Mixed with gin, Campari and sweet vermouth, it was named after Camillo Negroni in Florence who always ordered the same cocktail. Today Negroni is often consumed as a pre-dinner cocktail to stimulate the appetite for dinner. Aperitif is a European invention and it came to America in the early 1900s. Campari is also an Italian product, invented by Gaspare Campari in the early 1800s. http://www.cocktailtimes.com/gin/negroni.shtml

On film

If you want to see a couple of visual takes on the story, there's this 1961 film with Warren Beatty(!) and Vivien Leigh (ack!), and this 2003 TV deal with Helen Mirren(!) and Anne Bancroft (as the contessa!).

Would you rather be rich or sexy?

Beauty and wealth are the keys to this fictional world. Beauty is its own "virtue" in a way — the ticket that seems to free people from common morality and toil — but it's also the most surefire means to wealth and success. (Talent and knowledge — or even kindness — have their place but we've seen that they're not crucial to success). Mrs. Stone and Paolo have both relied on their looks to secure entry into the world of wealth and privilege. It seems like wealth is the point. Wealth is true freedom. But once wealth is obtained, it's found lacking, and then beauty once again seems the great object. Wealth is not an end in itself, but mainly a means of ensuring that beauty remains in one's life. That's really tangled, I know. I guess I'm asking what your take is on Williams' notion of how these two things interact.

Gender roles

This draws from DW's comment about Williams' description of Meg Bishop, but I thought it might need its own post.

I stumbled upon a book this morning called "Communists, Cowboys and Queers: The Politics of Masculinity in the Work of Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams." One passage looks at the various instances of gender reversal in "Mrs. Stone," from Meg Bishop to the Baron/Baroness to Mrs. Stone's seduction of her co-star.

You can read the excerpt here.

The woman-journalist

What is the point of including the character Meg Bishop in Mrs. Stone's story? She is the "woman-journalist" and old classmate who is visiting Mrs. Stone in her apartment at the beginning of the book, the one who warns her against the corrupt society she is moving in, accusing her of "escapism." She is also, perhaps more importantly, someone with whom Mrs. Stone, as a young woman, had some sort of intimacy with in "the dormitory of an Eastern college." The incident is mentioned once at the beginning, and then another time later as one of two instances of "emotional anarchy" in her life: "when the the kind of emotional anarchy which now seemed to possess her had happened only twice, in a college dormitory and the dressing room in Toledo" [where she seduced the actor].

Tall Dark Stranger

Is Tennessee Williams playing off stereotypes of the Latin Lover? Paolo is repeatedly described with his hand in his crotch “the center of his being”. Likewise isn’t Rome also sexualized? There was an odd little description early in the story where the domes of Rome were likened to the breasts of reclining women. How much is Williams depending on the preconceptions of his mid-20th American readers?

I was also intrigued by Williams blunt sexual descriptions that managed to avoid being either explicit or coy. Only occasionally did they seem awkward like that dome bit. But he did go on at great length in that mode. Was he excessive in the sort of way that KC thought he was in his bird motif descriptions?

The 800-pound bird in the room

At some point I started noticing the predatory bird imagery associated with Mrs. Stone. And then I noticed that the cover of my book has a giant stylized bird on it. I'm kind of slow on the uptake! But once I noticed, I started circling all the bird references, and there are dozens. (I'd even argue that the imagery is heavy-handed, but maybe there's a reason for that treatment that I'm not seeing). Her apartment in Rome is compared to an "eyrie of a bird." Her eyes are thought of by Paolo as containing "a rapacious bird." She sometimes has a "hawklike expression." She behaves toward the young actor she seduced as "a great bird of plunder." Time is spoken of as arresting her in "mid-flight." There's a reference to the "birdlike opacity of her eyes." At the end, she sweeps by Paolo with "the rapidity of a great-winged bird." And so on. The suit she buys Paolo is "dove" (peaceful, not predatory) grey.

Any thoughts on that? Did you see her as a predatory bird? Is she in any sense more preying than preyed upon?

Mrs. Stone

Once you discovered more about Mrs. Stone's own youth and the callousness she was capable of (I'm thinking specifically of the unreciprocated one-night stand with her fellow actor and the firing of the subordinate over jealousy — and generally of the unexamined vanity of her youth), did your sympathy for her shift at all? At one point I had the sensation of finding her less likeable for her faults but simultaneously more human and sympathetic.

Did you like her? Did she ever strike you as heroic?

The surrender

I'll start with what seems the most pressing question: How did you feel about Mrs. Stone's "surrender" — complete with waving white handkerchief — at the end of the book? And did it feel like an actual surrender (an acceptance of terms) or something else?

(I'll post some questions/observations to get the discussion started, but please jump in with your own posts.)

(Also, going in alphabetical order, the next pick is Leslie's.)