Ms. Hen reviews A Modern Mephistopheles

 

A Modern Mephistopheles

Louisa May Alcott

Robert Brothers

1877

Ms. Hen bought this book when she went to Louisa May Alcott's house, the Orchard House, recently for the Christmas living history presentation they have during the holiday season. Ms. Hen saw Louisa May Alcott and her family members as they were preparing for Christmas.

Ms. Hen knew that Alcott preferred to write thrillers, and did not like writing LITTLE WOMEN. This novel was published anonymously, the only dark book published in her lifetime.

This novel is about a writer, Felix Canaris, who is about to give up hope, but meets a man, Jasper Helwyze, who says he will help him. He helps him publish a book of poetry, and it is a great success, and he becomes famous. Helwyze tells him to marry a young woman, even though Canaris does not love her.

Helwyze plays with Canaris; they live together, and he demands that Canaris do everything he says. Helwyze torments Canaris' wife, Gladys, and he makes her look like a fool. The ending is so dark that Ms. Hen lost a little faith in the world.

Ms. Hen thinks this novel could be considered a morality tale, meaning to teach people to beware of those who offer things that seem too good to be true. Ms. Hen is aware that people in those days were not as worldly as they are now; some of them were too pious to see reality, and some thirsted for fame so much that they could see nothing else.

One part of this novel interested Ms. Hen. Helwyze gives Gladys bonbons laced with hashish, which apparently were the edibles of the nineteenth century. Gladys does not know she has been drugged, and performs a play for the men.

Ms. Hen really didn't like the writing style of this book. She thinks it's a little too old-fashioned for her taste. She reads classics, but something about the writing in this book was difficult. She thinks it might not have been edited well.

Even so, Ms. Hen thinks this is an important novel, because it shows a darker side of the Louisa May Alcott we all know so well. She wonders if all the people who work at the Orchard House know what a strange person Louisa truly was, and what bizarre books she could write. People are complicated, and the women of her time were supposed to be good and nurturing, but Louisa had her own way of living and writing, and Ms. Hen applauds that.

Ms. Hen at the Orchard House