Unreliable Narrators in the European Jungle

"Old Hulbird took the opportunity to read to me a full blooded lecture, in the style of an American oration, as to the perils of a young American girlhood lurking in the European jungle" 

(Three Soldiers Ford)

The perceptions of places based on an experience of a person often leads to the differences between them, the simplicity of altering one perceptions of a place by a quick glance, a quick note of judgment is something that tends to create untruthfulness or to not demonstrate the whole entire picture. Like a photograph cutting the reality into a square box where all you see is what you choose to see, not cutting the corners or venturing further, but leaving this view of ones, to the deteriorating and accumulation of dust that forms on the creases of the now abandoned photograph. This European jungle that the father of Florence in the Three Soldiers by Ford Madox shows just how a squared orientation can sometimes cause to rebel, to have a wantingness to see the other sides of the story. “ He said that Paris was full of snakes in the grass, of which he had bitter experience, he concluded as they always do, poor, dear old things with the aspiration that all American woman should one be sexless, though that is not they way they put it…”(Madox). This desire to walk the lands of where the most famous artists, poets, writers, performers, and musicians roamed like free spirits all intertwined in this drug like passion that filled their every desire. Like Florence who dreamed and wanted a husband that would bring her to this European atmosphere, this new place where she could grow in society, be well off, and make a good life for herself, a dryness that often resembled the attitude to love with how the Americans encountered in Ford Madox’s reality, perceived the truth and love. “On the 1^st of august Florence apparently told her aunts that she intended to marry me” (Madox), this harshness and bluntness of the decision to marry lacks a exoticness, lacks that lust, that desire for him.

The way they talk about one another is with a taste of bitterness, it makes the reader feel the real dislike that he has for her, describing her as if he “Had been given a thin shelled pullet egg to carry on my (his) palm from equatorial Africa to Hoboken” (Madox). This view of his wife rather degusts one, perhaps she is frail and small and frightened, but love is not meant to bring you down its mean to bring you up. The style of writing shows a one sided view, one of injustices and perhaps not the truth of the situation. It shows a lack of understanding of what love even means, or what it is to love, the narrator seems to have no real grasp of what this in factious thing called love is. Said to be an unreliable narrator, this objectification of this women is something that frustrates the reader, when one doesn’t truly love one and just sees as a trophy to have evidentially if a cheating act happens the dislikes come together for that person and create great turmoil. However if he had truly loved her, the way he would have written abut her cheat would not have been the same way perhaps. For to love is something that encapsulates you, with feelings of desire of beauty of a calmness that someone knows all of you and accepts that and will continue to be with you and care for you. To love is something so rare, so innocent, like a child’s mind, it has a purity that humans are lacking today, the embrace from your lover can fill the deepest holes buried deep within you, make you feel whole, like a ripe, luscious peach on a summer’s day, or the beauty and simplicity of one snowflake in the multitude of snowflakes in a raining sky.   Evidently the way she cheats on him in the story conjures up a sourness, however he never loved her really, and thus the accumulative dislikes he shared for her seem to rise like a stubborn child and unleashes itself on the pages of the Three Soldiers.

However Ford Madox when describing Paris there is a greater love found there, which is ironic for through the character of his Three Soldiers it shows this dislike for it. The ways of communication can alter in each writers pieces, like an artist, each painting is never always happy or sad, there is a mix of the subject matter. When one learns ones perception alters with it, the truth is uncovered and the real reality comes through. Taking away the eyes of love and hatred its becomes easier to perceive what the truth is, often a challenge for judgment runs through the veins of humans, its what this whole world runs on. What, who and whom we dislike or like, why we like or dislike it, all these relate to one another. Our visions are all based on the experiences we’ve had with someone or something that perhaps resembles the object in front. Like A Paris Letter, the perception of Paris as a female and her embodiment is one of great admiration for her capabilities to remain so beautiful despite constant bashes; “It is really the most wonderful of international phenomena. For she is the unchanging heart of a land that has survived unnumbered invasions” – “she has survived because the imaginations her poets in ink, colours, sounds of stones, have given to her vision o an unrivalled clarity, a frigid rectitude, an almost unthinkable resilience”- (Madox). A paradise for artists, Madox sees truth, sees the magical body that of which is Paris, “Her poets have at once breathed into her life and inspiration and conferred on her unchanging immortality”- “not so much by chanting land of hope and glory but by crooning those little songs to the hurdy gurdy that are Paris and France”(Maddox). The style of writing alludes to great vision of Paris; he demonstrates his reality with a straightforwardness view. I feel this is similar with communications between a European and an American, the American writer I feel will spare the details and be rather blunt with the facts whereas the European writer will go beyond and search for every detail, even if it seems unnecessary, it is the words that aid the reader to get a better illustration of the writers truth or fictional truth.

This idea of what is true and what is false, what is an exaggeration is something that the past readings have conjured up questions about what is right and wrong. In the passage in Hemingway’s a Moveable Feast, sitting in a little café Hemingway is joined by Madox, and his reaction is not necessary the kindest gesture, “I took a drink to see if his coming had fouled it, but it still tasted good” talking about Maodx- bringing foulness wherever he goes. However “He was a good companion until he drank too much and, at that time, when he was lying, he was more interesting than many men telling a story truly” (Hemingway). This idea of telling the truth and exaggerating a fact, can aid to create something that is far more interesting- often when writing or telling stories exaggeration, or enhancement of the object, is always a little more interesting and more enjoyable to read. The reality is never perfect, or as romantic as we say it is, but we find symbolism that can influence the way we perceive things that allude to a more romanticized view or a more negative view, a sadder view, or happier view. Perceptions of a reality is very personal and allows to reader to get in touch with the mind of the writer, it perhaps is altered or people have been left out like a ‘cad’, but it allures the reader to want to read more.

Saturday 17 2014,

Applying my last touch of dark rouge lipstick I walked down the winding stairs on the uneven wooden boards, slightly creaking with each step when touched by the short heels on my new velvet boots. It was a cooler night, summer was ending and we had begun to enter the fall mood, walking with anticipation to meet him. The streets were alive with hustle and bustle, I could hear music coming from the open apartment windows, and groups of friends laughing as I walked past them, passing galleries that were packed with characters of the night sipping on wine, the metro a whole new underground world. Musicians playing their instruments while the youth gets tipsy on cheap wine, adults looking down on them yet keeping a twinkle of remembrance in their eyes of the times they were there. Hoping off the metro I walked to this little bar where he was waiting for me, walking in my heart beating faster, there I saw him, smiling at me while he walked towards me and with a kiss, I knew this was going to be a great night. Being a part of a group of friends laughing, discussing topics from arts to math’s, as the night went on I began to grow tired from this nights endeavors, he looked at me and took my hand, stepped outside and got in a taxi. With my hand in his we looked out the window of the dark musty taxi, the views of Paris in my blurry state were undeniably beautiful. Passing the delicately lit up seine, and moonlight lit trees, dim lighted apartments, and comedic drunks attempting to walk straight. He kissed by neck and whispered “tu est aussi belle que la cite”, Paris with its imperfections and cracks remains to be so beautiful and bright, even in the dark there is still beauty to be found. 

This view of Paris as this beautiful place, unaltered from the past, it feeds a hunger that artists desire, the style of writing between Hemingway’s Paris and madox’s Paris, shows great similarity. Yet the way of writing is very different, the harshness and dryness of madox’s writing is rather stubborn and blunt however the way Hemingway describes it is with great admiration even though she is not perfect, he remains infatuated by her. Communication is something of a myth, for there always seems to be perceptions and opinions that all alter the way people see things, when people communicate we often hear differently from what the person is saying, or understand what wed like to understand. Communication is not as easy as most people would like to think, there are differences in each culture how to express oneself, there is a constant debate wither what is being said is in fact what you see, what you mean, what you feel or if its an exaggeration or a illusion or a mask of what is truly inside ones head. Like In Hemingway’s a moveable feast, Madox being rude to Belloc, Hemingway being embarrassed thinking that it’s rude of madox to not be kinder to an author that he inspires by. Yet when Hemingway discusses with someone who is close to him and who admits that the one to be thought Belloc was in fact Aleister Crowley;  “the diabolist, he’s supposed to be the wickedest man in the world” in which he replies ‘sorry’. Perception is a great thing and wither the reality of these authors are true or not, it shapes our perceptions of the characters and places they discuss, like what I write here will give someone a perception of one of my nights out in Paris. Each writer here has a different view of this city yet they all in agreement with raw nature of her being, as they sit at cafes and ponder on the world they live in while sipping on Chambery vermouth and cassis, they remain indulged in their own reality, and will remain writing about how they perceive to be this European Jungle.