Her short story The Waking of Helen (1901) is
a depressing account of a doomed girl. It is of interest because it contains a
good summary of three possible ways of looking at well-known writers.
We can view them as elite, fortunate and noble
people who are far above the masses; we can respect, admire, even worship them
for their achievements and envy them for their position, popularity and the immortality
of their names.
We can view them with disappointment, disillusionment,
disapproval and disgust when we become aware of their real characters and read
about some of the appalling things that they believed, said and did.
We can feel sadness and pity for their unhappy
lives when we learn what they had to endure and realise that for them, fame and
fortune were no compensation for what they lost or never had.
These ways of looking at writers are not
mutually exclusive.
Here are some relevant extracts from the story:
We start with the views of L. M. Montgomery's character Helen. She represents people who think that famous writers are demi-gods:
"’You should have been an artist,’
Reeves told her one day...
‘I would rather be a writer,’ she said
slowly, ‘if I could only write something like those books you have read to me.
What a glorious destiny it must be to have something to say that the whole
world is listening for, and to be able to say it in words that will live
forever! It must be the noblest human lot.’”
Helen expresses the first view of writers
very well. She is very young and naïve. Her idealistic view of writers
is one-sided, limited and based on imagination not experience.
The character Reeves sets her straight:
“‘Yet some of those men and women were
neither good nor noble,’ said Reeves gently, ‘and many of them were unhappy.’”
Reeves nails it. He is older and wiser than
Helen, and he is aware of the difference between the creative artist and the
human being. His words may sound like platitudes to some of us - ‘everyone
knows that’ - but others need to hear and accept them.
As with many people confronted with home
truths, Helen doesn’t want to know:
“Helen dismissed the subject as abruptly as
she always did when the conversation touched too nearly on the sensitive edge
of her soul dreams.”
Helen wants to keep her illusions. The less
people have in life, the more tightly they cling to it and the more they
idealise things they have no experience of.
Helen’s parents are dead. She lives with her
unsympathetic aunt and uncle and her life is very restricted. She is yet
another of L. M. Montgomery’s characters who are discouraged from reading, so
of course books and writers mean the world to her:
“When he spoke of books he touched the right
chord...
‘That
is what I've always wanted,’ she said hungrily, ‘and I never get them. Aunt
hates to see me reading. She says it is a waste of time. And I love it so. I
read every scrap of paper I can get hold of, but I hardly ever see a book.’"
No wonder she values writers so highly.
I have revered a few writers myself; I know
of many who were not decent human beings and some who had a very dark side. I
can think of many examples of writers who suffered terribly and were very unhappy for much of their
lives.
Some of these people have already been
mentioned on here and some will be covered in future articles.
It is very sad to think that one of the
unhappiest writers I know of is L. M. Montgomery herself.
