Past
suffering and future bliss?
Amalie Ansett is a busy working professional who
part owns an advertising agency in Los Angeles. California. She has just suffered a painful break-up of
her marriage and while cleaning her family home, which is now on the market, she
discovers an unopened letter to her mother from a previously unknown cousin,
Josephina Ansett. Josephina lives on St.
Clements, a small island in the Caribbean.
The letter invites Amalie and her mother, who is now deceased, to a
visit on the island. Sorely in need of a
break Amalie decides to go. Imagine her
surprise when, while touring on St. Clements she learns of another Amalie
Ansett, who lived in the early 1800s, and who looks remarkably like her
twenty-first century descendent. Life
takes on an even stranger turn when Amalie is visited by the ghost of Jonathan
Evans, the 1810 lover of the Amalie of the past. Jonathan died in strange, unexplained
circumstances and asks for Amalie’s help to solve the mystery.
Blair McDowell’s Delighting
In your Company is an exciting, action packed novel of the paranormal
romance/erotica genre. Much more than
this, though, the book gives a glimpse of life in the early 1800s, especially
for women and slaves. Most of all this
is a novel about Amalie’s need to come to terms with her very present and very
‘real’ life problems.
McDowell’s novel has a more unusual and complex
narrative structure. There is a short
introductory section, set in L.A. (Ch. 1), followed by an introduction to St.
Clements and its history (Ch. 2 to Ch. 4).
Next there is a sequence of three visits to the past, each successively
moving towards some kind of resolution of Jonathan’s problem. After each visit there is a further working
out, in the present, of the consequences of the stay in the past. These three sections are: First visit and its
consequences (Ch. 5 to Ch. 6); Second visit and its consequences (Ch. 7 to Ch. 9),
and Third visit and its consequences (Ch. 10 to Ch. 12). Finally there is an Epilogue which neatly
wraps up and resolves both the past and present plot lines. This more unusual plot line serves well to
keep the reader interested, while at the same time allowing questions to remain
open until the very end. The three
visits involve a little repetition, but are in no way boring. Rather McDowell skilfully works in many new
details, weaving more and more complexity as the novel proceeds.
Delighting
In Your Company is written in omniscient narrator mode,
but mainly centres on Amalie’s perspective.
There are, though, a number of shifts to Jonathan’s perspective, and
that of other characters. The novel
contains a number of surprise plot twists and “Oh my God!” chapter
endings. There is also some humour,
especially in the early part of the book, including a “hair-raising” drive from
the St. Clements airport, chauffeured by Andrew, Josephina’s half-blind, hired
hand (Ch. 2). There is also here and
there a touch of irony to remind us of the bitter truth of life’s suffering. All of this goes to make an interesting and
well written text with plenty of stylistic flair. It should be noted that sex is quite openly
depicted in the novel and that this may offend conservative readers. While it containing erotic elements the novel
is not pure erotica.
McDowell’s ‘good’ characters are suitably likable,
though most not perfectly so, and we relate to them even though many come from
a past, unfamiliar time. Amalie is a
capable woman, but in emotional need.
Josephina, at 80 years old, is suitably wise and motherly, though
perhaps a little “fey” (Ch. 3). Jonathan
is caring and kind, but is certainly to some extent trapped in the male bigotry
of his era. McDowell’s ‘bad’ characters,
chiefly Charles Benstone the 1800s “Island Administrator” (Ch. 2), is suitably
dastardly, though as a point of criticism he is perhaps slightly too evil to be
‘real’. Perhaps just a bit more insight
into his history and motivations could have made him more rounded. The name Amalie is a variation of the name
Amelia, which itself is a blending of Emilia and Amalia (Patrick Hanks &
Flavia Hodges. A Concise Dictionary of First Names: Third ed.: Oxford University
Press, 2001, p. 10). Emilia means
“rival” (Hanks, p. 79) and Amalia means “work” (Hanks, p. 10). Amalie finds that her past counterpart is in
many ways a competitor for the affections of Jonathan, and certainly has much
labour set out for her in solving the mystery of the past. Jonathan means “God has given” (Hanks, p.131)
and he has certainly been blessed with wealth and position, though this name
has some irony as those are the very possessions which he seems to have been
stripped of. Josephina means “God shall
add (another … [child])” (Hanks, p. 132)
and she indeed acquires a ‘daughter’ in the form of Amalie.
The novel very much resolves around the theme of
possession. How firmly do we hold our
land or place in society? Should one
person ever ‘own’ another (slavery)?
More broadly are we free to think beyond our culture, or are we trapped
in it, ‘possessed’ by it? We all
surrender a little of our ‘control’ to others, whether we like it or not, but
surely the human spirit reaches for the maximum freedom pragmatically
available? In another direction we as
free individuals often choose to co-operate, and this indeed is a theme
relevant to Western culture, and perhaps particularly to U.S. society. We value frontier individuality, but much of
the ‘West” was won by teams of people working together. In modern society the 1960’s marked the
beginning of the ‘I” culture, but as Rollo May has pointed out in Freedom and Destiny (W.W. Norton, c1981)
we have the restraint of responsibility to others on us, and beyond this history
has shown that we truly achieve by co-operation (Robin Dunbar, Louise Barrett
& John Lycett. Evolutionary
Psychology: A Beginner’s Guide: Oneworld, c2007, Ch. 11). What are the limits of the hard headed U.S.
individualist? Indeed they can achieve
much, but at what cost? Finally
open-mindedness is an important theme which builds upon the last two
mentioned. To see beyond what our
society tells us about possession and individuality we must have an open mind
or we are forever subject to ‘enculturation’, trapped. Are other cultures religious beliefs
completely foolish? Are we doomed to
repeat our history by the rigid bounds of the society we are ‘constructed’ in,
matured in? Are psychic phenomena
completely foolish as we are likely to say in a ‘pat,’ off-hand way, or are
there possibilities beyond our experience?
The female characters in Delighting In Your Company are virtually all capable women who
enjoy a challenge and have skills to meet it.
Amalie and her business partner, Lorna Cummings, were “two women in a
class of twenty men” (Ch. 1), but never-the-less they graduated from the UCLA
with business degrees. “They watched and
commiserated with each other as less competent men were promoted over them,”
but in the end set up their own “L.A. advertising agency”. “Lana’s support through all these
circumstances and more very much reminds us of the second wave feminist’s
“consciousness-raising” rap groups in which they shared their experiences,
successes and failures, and gave each other support (Cathia Jenainati. Introducing
Feminism: Icon Books, c2010, p. 81, 95, 102). Josephina proves more wise than “fey” (Ch.
3). Amalie of the 1800s is “no shrinking
violet” (Ch. 5). She was a “tomboy” (Ch.
5) as a child. She swims and rides
horses like a man and is a very forward lover.
Gustavia Graham, a descendent of St. Clement’s slaves, administers the
Island museum by herself. Elvirna
Jones, one of Josephina’s employees proves savvy to the goings on of St.
Clement’s society. Even Jemma and Krishia, slaves though they are, show their
worth as loving, caring individuals where they could easily be haters and
betrayers. The position of women of the
1800s as ‘protected” (Ch. 7) individuals who should not worry their “pretty
little heads” (Ch. 5) about important matters is very much portrayed, with
considerable condemning comment from Amalie.
But even the position of post second wave feminist women is
examined. In chapter 1 Amalie reveals
that she sees herself as “mousy” and “over-weight”, though Lorna strongly
denies this. This whole conversation is
highly ironic as Amalie has fallen victim to the very myth perpetrated by the
advertising business. We immediately
think of Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth
(William Morrow, 1991). In general
Feminists will enjoy this novel as a work looking at both past injustices,
present achievements and present difficulties.
As we have observed even the history and current position of African descent
women is looked at.
Following from Feminism, those interested in Gender
Studies will find the depiction of Jonathan worth examination. As a man of the early 1800s Jonathan’s view
of women in some ways quite fits the bigoted attitude towards women of his
time. When Amalie tries to inform him of
the shady business deal her father has got himself entrapped in Jonathan doubts
her word very much and insists that he will sort the whole issue out himself by
discussing the matter man to man (Ch. 10). Jonathan must be gently “persuaded” (Ch.
10) to listen to Amalie. On the other
hand Jonathan is very much a non-stereotypical, caring man. He is in many ways very tender with Amalie. He also cares very much for the slaves on his
plantation. In this time of transition
from slavery to freedom (1810) he is the only plantation owner on the island
experimenting with new crops which are less labour intensive and involve much
more humane working conditions. He
secretly plans to free his slaves.
Samuel, Jonathan’s freed African descent companion, is also a caring man. Having seen and experienced the cruelty of
the slave system he has every right to be vengeful and aggressive, but he is
very much above this kind of macho behaviour: instead he is a man of deep
thought and caring, as well as action.
Benstone, on the other hand is the epitome of 1800’s male bigotry and
stereotype, being motivated by power, and a female dominator to boot.
Gay characters are completely absent from the
novel. This is an unfortunate oversight
in a book dealing so much with the notion of typed roles, exclusion and
rebellion.
The aged are of course represented by the 85 year old
Josephina who is depicted as having a wise understanding of life, in all its
complexity and strangeness, and a loving, caring and open personality. The absent characters of Amalie’s mother and
father are also described as being caring people who supported their daughter
with affection, a listening ear and wise advice (Ch. 1). Of course not all of the aged are wise and
caring, but it is excellent to see this often overlooked, and frequently
demeaned, group depicted positively.
The idea of wealth verses personal fulfilment is
prominent in the novel and this notion will quite appeal to those interested in
the Marxism/Capitalism debate. Marx was
very much interested in “the relationships between individuals and the society
they lived in” (Gill Hand. Understanding
Marx: Hodder Education, 2011, p. 67), and in allowing people to reach the
full potential they are capable of.
Early in the story Brett, Amalie’s ex-husband, is revealed to be only
interested in Amalie for the social connections her family offers: connections
to wealth and success. Benstone also is
interested in ”conquest” (Ch. 6) in all its various forms. The “Hollywood Hills” lifestyle (Ch. 1) is
contrasted with the quieter, but more personally fulfilling, existence of St.
Clements. Marx of course was very much
interested in the evils of, and the countering of, Colonialism (Hand, p.44-46),
and Delighting In Your Company very
much deals critically with the suffering of slaves, and the drive for money and
power, in the British Colonial Caribbean.
As we have just said, Dowell’s novel spends a
considerable amount of time looking at English colonialism and its
implications. The part of the world
depicted in the book, both in the present and in the past, is not post-colonial. In the present Josephina is a white land
owner, with African descent employees, sitting in her, certainly much faded,
but not past estate. The Island museum
enshrines only colonial history. There
are no African descent items on display, and certainly no archaeological items
from the original, indigenous Caribbean occupants. In the past Colonialism is of course very
live and well. This colonial ethos,
however, certainly does not go unquestioned or uncriticised: far from it. In her first tour of the museum, for example,
Amalie is struck by the harsh conditions of the cook house, where the slaves
worked, with its very low roof and no windows, thus trapping the heat of the
oven (Ch. 2). In the past the horrors of
the “boiling house” (Ch. 4), where the sugar cane is cooked is even more
graphically described. As has been noted
many of the African descent characters are positively portrayed. As one further example Edward Sloan,
Josephina’s lawyer, is of African descent and is quite prosperous and
successful. The African Obeah religion
is in many ways positively represented, and the negative qualities are compared
with the adverse qualities of Christianity.
The novel could be criticised for weaving a ‘mystical’ aura around the
Caribbean in a similar way that Edward Said noted the West romanticises the
East (Orientalism: Vintage Books,
1979). Much of this mystery, however,
comes from the shifting, multi-cultured circumstance of the narrative, which is
very much in line with Post-Colonial Theory (Peter Barry. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary And Cultural Theory:
Third Ed.: Manchester University Press, 2009, p. 189-190). St. Clements is in the Caribbean, but is part
English / part African, and the island
is visited by an American. We freely
move through these cultures and through time, none of which is represented as
perfect, and none of which is unfairly condemned.
Structuralists, particularly those influence by
Levi-Strauss (Mary Klages. Literary
Theory: A Guide For The Perplexed: Continuum, 2006, p. 42-43), will observe
that McDowell’s novel includes a number of paired characters. The complimentary pairs are: Amalie of the
present/Amalie of the 1800s, Amalie (both present and past)/Jonathan, Amalie/Josephina
and Brett/Benstone. The opposing pairs
are Amalie/Brett and Amalie/Benstone.
The novel very much revolves around a good/bad dichotomy which is quite
marked. As we have observed the ‘good’
characters are rounded, having faults, but Benstone is very much the arch
villain. As we have also seen there is a
man/woman dichotomy and s slave/master opposition, though these tend to
reconcile, in a more Postmodern fashion, as the book progresses.
Postmodernists, influenced by Jacques Derrida, will
note that white/upper-class/male is the centre of the system of the 1800’s, as
depicted in the novel, and that, as we have just said above, this centre
becomes destabilized as the plot progresses (Klages, p. 55-60). Giving details would of course spoil the
book.
Delighting
In Your Company very much depicts Jacques Lacan’s idea
of the “Other” (Lionel Bailly. Lacan: A
Beginner’s Guide: Oneworld, 2009, Ch. 7).
We all desire ‘something’ which we feel is missing in our life and which
is possessed by, and can be fulfilled by another person. According to Lacan the sense of the Other can
never completely be fulfilled, and indeed McDowell has interestingly depicted
the Other as a ghost, a real yet unreal, ephemeral thing. The novel can be read as a symbolic
therapeutic journey: a suffering woman
who has lost her parents and husband goes to an island to find answers from the
past to resolve her current circumstances.
The ocean can be a symbol of the consciousness, of “our psychic depths”
(Kathleen Martin, ed. The Book Of
Symbols: Reflections On Archetypal Images: Taschen, c2010, p. 36) and
indeed, one way or another Amalie must delve into her psyche to resolve issues
regarding her parents, divorce and rushed business life. The ocean also has mother/creative-force
aspects (C. G. Jung. Symbols Of
Transformation: An Analysis Of The Prelude To A Case Of Schizophrenia:
second ed.: Princeton University Press, 1967, p. 217-219), and interestingly on
St. Clements Amalie finds a mother figure.
Ghosts can refer to “unfinished business,” specifically “unresolved
grief and persistent attachment,” and “tender ghosts … return to console”
(Martin, p. 788). Jonathan could very
much be said to comfort Amalie in her time of need. Much of the story revolves around the need
for a key to a safe. For Freud the key
is a sexual symbol (Sigmund Freud. The Interpretation
Of Dreams: Penguin Books, 1976, p. 471) and indeed sex and sexual need is
fairly prominent in the plot. More
broadly the lock and key is symbolic of “transformation,” as something that
“will give access to the object of longing – self-discovery, peace of mind, the
enigmatic heart of the beloved” (Martin, p. 562). McDowell’s novel is indeed a depiction of a
search for these longed for matters.
As it has paranormal content McDowell’s novel very
much lends itself to mythological interpretation. As we have seen the plot contains an Amalie
of the present and ‘twin’ Amalie of 1810.
As Claude Levi-Strauss points out in his essay ‘Harelips And Twins: The Splitting
Of a Myth” (Myth And Meaning:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978, p. 24-33) twins, in American indigenous
culture, are often depicted as rivals, and indeed in McDowell’s book both women
are competitors for Jonathan’s affections.
In astrology “Gemini represents a search for self through the mental
process …” (Kim Farnell. Astrology: New
Illustrated: Starfire, 2002, p. 86)
In the Northern Hemisphere this sign falls at the seasonal time of year
when “more light is being shed on this world so that it can be seen,
contemplated and understood in its myriad expression” (Farnell, p. 86). As we have just seen in the preceding
paragraph the novel can be seen as a therapeutic journey. Gemini is ruled by the planet Mercury, the
servant of the Gods (Farnell, p. 86) and Amalie finds herself called to solve a
kind of “cosmic error” (Ch. 7). For
those born under Gemini “life’s different options can be identified” (Nicholas
Campion. Zodiac: Enhance Your Life
Through Astrology: Quadrille, c2000, p. 49) and “fresh possibilities” are
explored. In McDowell’s novel Amalie
must try several different solutions before she is successful. Gemini is sometimes represented as a couple
(Campion, p. 53) and Amalie and Jonathan, both blond haired characters, must
together work to restore order to the past.
Continuing on with the mythological aspects of McDowell’s
novel it can be noted that the tarot card of The Devil is relevant to
the book. As we have noted, Benstone is
depicted as a quite malicious person, with no redeeming features. He manifests throughout the book as an arch enemy
and evildoer. Sallie Nichols in her
analysis of this tarot card notes that the Devil is known for “arrogance and
pride,” that he has “too much ambition,” that he has “charm and considerable
influence,” and that “Temptation … [is] … his specialty” (Jung And Tarot: An Archetypal Journey: Samuel Weiser, 1980, p. 261). This is Benstone to a T. He uses his position of Island Administrator
to charm Amalie’s father into a very lucrative, but very shady deal. He is puffed up with his own power, intelligence
and conceit. Further Nichols notes of
the devil that he is known for “temper tantrums and … vengeance” (Nichols, p,
262), and indeed Amalie encounters exactly this behaviour when she moves to
cross Benstone. Waite, in his commentary
on The Devil card notes that it represents those “fallen into the
material and animal state” (Arthur Edward Waite. The Pictorial Key To The Tarot: Being Fragments Of A Secret Tradition
Under The Veil Of Divination: U.S. Games Systems, c1971, p. 135), and
indeed Benstone is motivated by money and power, and prone to rather animal
emotions. The traditional Marseilles Deck shows to characters,
perhaps one male and one female (they are ambiguous), chained to the alter on
which the Devil stands. In the early twentieth
century Waite Deck these figures are definitely man and woman. Amalie of the past and Jonathan are unwitting,
and apparently inextricably, trapped in Benstone’s mesh of intrigue and deceit. Even Amalie of the present finds it extremely difficult to break the
chains which bind those two characters to disaster.
In her commentary Nichols notes that the
psychological state represented by The Devil card connects to that of
the next card, The Tower (Nichols, p, 287), and indeed this second card
is also relevant to McDowell’s novel. The
Tower depicts a small, stone keep struck by flames/lightening with two
people falling from its walls. Nichols
notes that these two people “are being thrown from a position of lofty security
into one of exposure and confusion” (Nichols, p.283). Amalie and Jonathan of the past are certainly
thrown from their colonial positions of privilege and certainty, and Jonathan’s
mansion will literally go up in flames.
In a broader sense Crowley, in his commentary on the card, notes that it
represents “destruction of the old-established Aeon” (The Book Of Thoth: A Short Essay On The Tarot Of The Egyptians:
Samuel Weiser, 1974, p. 107). As we have
seen Delighting In Your Company very
much has to do with slavery, Colonialism and the end of these systems. Nichols notes that in order to break from the
state of the card the individual must break free of “rigid system” (Nichols, p.
285). Jonathan, as we have seen, is
experimenting with new crops, different from the tried and tested, but cruel,
Colonial crop of sugar cane.
Blair McDowell’s Delighting
In Your Company is a novel of considerable complexity and depth of thought,
dealing with issues that will interest those fascinated with Feminism,
Post-Colonial Theory and Marxism. The
psychological aspects of the book are also intriguing, particularly in terms of
the depiction of the therapeutic journey.
On one level the novel can be read for the pure pleasure of paranormal
romance, but on another level it will give the reader much to think about. It is certainly not a dry scholarly tome;
indeed, this is an exciting and very enjoyable read. This novel also has much to say about
ordinary human experience, touching on issues of possession, co-operation and
open-mindedness. Most of all this is a
book about the search for human fulfilment.
I am happy to rate this book as 5 out of 5 stars.
