"'I'm beginning to believe,' she murmured, 'that no one is ever completely happy, or free, or safe.'"

—Quicksand—

Interestingly, I expected to like Passing more but vastly preferred this novel. It hits a little too close to home: lonely bookish girl grows up in the South, moves to Chicago which she likes better, and then moves abroad which she likes best. However, she feels a strange inevitable pull back to America—she knows she can't live there happily yet also can't quite stay away. She teaches and loves her students but feels empty and craves fine things. Everyone urges her to get married, but she's not in a hurry and falls in love with the wrong people. Spooky. Nella Larsen has a masterful way of crafting and expressing emotion, and I think that's the element of her work that will remain with me.

"'You don't mean that you're going to live over there? Do you really like it so much better?' 'Yes and no, to both questions. I was awfully glad to get back, but I wouldn't live here always. I couldn't. I don't think any of us who've lived abroad for any length of time would ever live here altogether again if they could help it... Oh, I don't mean tourists who rush over to Europe and rush all over the continent and rush back to America thinking they know Europe. I mean people who've actually lived there, actually lived among the people" (101).

—Passing—

I was surprised at the closeness of the 2021 film's script to the true dialogue of the book! Definitely The Great Gatsby vibes (which is always a yes from me) yet without a similar sense of endearment or intrigue towards the flawed characters. However, I would love to read/write an essay on Daisy Buchanan and Clare Kendry and this sort of 1920s "voice like money" manic pixie dream girl trope. How does this subtle or not-so-subtle equivocation with wealth relate to seeing women as possessions as well as ideas of whiteness? So fascinating. Also, the fact that both characters have a daughter (perpetuating a cycle?) yet wrestle with motherhood: Clare's "I think that being a mother is the cruellest thing in the world." and Daisy's "That's the best thing a girl can be in this world—a beautiful little fool." Now I'm thinking about Sylvia Plath's "Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children." Can you tell that I miss being an English major?

"Sitting alone in the quiet living-room in the pleasant fire-light, Irene Redfield wished, for the first time in her life, that she had not been born a Negro. For the first time she suffered and rebelled because she was unable to disregard the burden of race. It was, she cried silently, enough to suffer as a woman, an individual, on one's own account, without having to suffer for the race as well. It was a brutality, and undeserved. Surely, no other people so cursed as Ham's dark children" (225).

QUICKSAND: The writing/storytelling is strong and compelling; the main character I found to be
quite frustrating. Quicksand is the story of a woman in young adulthood trying to find a place to land, which is endlessly complicated by her identity and her inner struggles with that. Takes place in the 20’s in both the US and one European city.

PASSING: A much stronger narrative than Quicksand. The story is told through Irene’s perspective,
a Black woman living in Harlem who is able to ‘pass’ and does so only in moments of great need. She is reunited, by happenstance, with childhood friend Clare. Clare lives her life fully passing, having married a white man. Irene struggles with having Clare in her life again for many reasons and these struggles form the narrative. Passing is a compelling short read and I am excited to see the film adaptation now.

Both Passing and Quicksand end in ways that leave a lot of room for the reader's imagination.

I've actually only read Quicksand (I'll get to passing at another time), but damn. I read it for a class focused on discussing marginalized groups--and with the professor I had, we got into discussing the nature of identity and social groups based on identity, what they are, how they operate in society (or how society makes THEM operate? ;) ) and how they operate differently in different societies. Quicksand was a remarkable demonstration of those concepts through fiction particularly in the case of anti-black racism, exoticism, and colorism. The main character, Helga Crane, who is of Black American and Danish descent, lives in three main places throughout the book: as a teacher in a Black, Christian school in the south US; she lives in Denmark for some time with her aunt; and she lives in Harlem in NYC during or around the same time as the Harlem Renaissance. Quicksand had some of the best writing I've ever read, hands down. Larsen is subtle and nuanced with her language at times, at others very poetic and evocative of deep and gripping emotional experiences. It rather reminds me of going to an orchestral performance or an opera, or anything that's long-form. It's long and drawn-out, but if you pay attention at all, you know it's a fucking masterpiece with how all the little details play off each other. And the ending is so tragic in a way I never expected to be, but it was so much more poignant than so many other tragic endings I've read. This isn't a book for impatient people wanting a quick fix, but if you give it the time and respectful attention it deserves it will give back just as much if not more than you put into it. This is on my top shelf in my home library--meaning it's one of my favorites. Seriously worthwhile.

Over the summer, someone brought Nella Larsen to my attention. The books were readily available on the ebook app from my library. I read and reviewed "Overgang" ("Passing") in a separate post. Technically, I should have read "Kviksand" ("Quicksand") first because it was written first. I am glad I didn't. I had a hard time getting through "Kviksand". The writing was quite good, but it still felt like it was showing its age at times. Or perhaps it was because I didn't find Helga Crane that sympathetic.

The short stories in this particular publication are excellent. Really well written and sharp.
* Frihed (Freedom)
* Den forkerte mand (The Wrong Man) - slightly dated take on a woman not wanting a past affair to come to light at a time where that could totally destroy your reputation, a reputation being so terribly important in many circles. Still powerfully written.
* Tilflugt (Sanctuary) - this one packs a punch. A black man takes refuge from a white lynch mob in the home of an old woman. Slowly, the story of what he is running from takes shape. The last line packs the punch.

"Kviksand" is still very relevant despite my complaints about a touch of age here and there, and my lack of empathy a lot of the time with Helga. Helga is very conscious about race issues because she is mixed race and doesn't ever feel that she belongs anywhere. The story opens when she is teaching at a Black university in some southern state. She feels restless and leaves a bit impulsively to head to Chicago in the hope of contacting her late (white) mother's brother. That doesn't go well! She runs into her uncle's very racist wife, instead of her uncle. This so-called aunt declares there is no way they can be related due to Helga's skin colour! Later, the uncle sends her a letter with some money as his way of saying sorry, I can't help you, here's a wad of money, but we cannot contact each other every again [because race...!]She is really down to her last pennies when she gets a job as a companion to a famous Black woman travelling to New York City for a lecture. This woman helps Helga find a job in New York City because Helga feels the need to leave Chicago and thinks NYC is the answer she is looking for. After a period of seeming success in NYC decides that she needs to return to her mother's home - Denmark. She sails for Copenhagen. As you can see, there really is a lot of restlessness in Helga. It is definitely connected to her feeling about not knowing where she belongs.

Helga does run into systemic racism walls everywhere she goes, but I don't understand why she doesn't fight back more. I get the impression that she feels unwelcome in NYC by those Black people who want nothing to do with white people. Because Helga is part white, she feels they are also rejecting her. And so it goes. She feels much better in Denmark, or so she thinks. She seems to think that living in America while Black is pointless because of all the systemic racism. She doesn't encounter that in Denmark, so Denmark seems better to her. However, what happens to her in Denmark is fetishism!! How can that be better?? She is exotic (and that grows out of systemic racism). Her relatives even regarded her as an exotic creature and were using her to help them up certain ladders in society. Although Helga had a comfortable life with them, she was paying a very high price with her own self-confidence and self-worth. A painter hired to paint her portrait buys her gaudy clothing simply because he equates her with some idea about primitive people and colours!!

Spoiler

He apparently propositions her. Here, the language is a tad too euphemistic for me to be certain, but it does seem like he is suggesting they get it on or something! She ignores him completely because it seems that the suggestion is also a bit too much for Helga to be certain about, too. And then later he proposes marriage, and says something about making an offer early, but "you were smart to hold out for the real thing", or something like that. Basically, he is a metoo racist bastard of the highest caliber!) She did feel attracted to him in the early days of their acquaintance. I wonder if this is part of her other restlessness about fitting into the role of woman - what do good women do, and what do "bad" women do. In my opinion, she did well to avoid him regardless of her bad or good woman state!!

I grew to feel sorry for Helga. I thought she should have fought back against the system. I am aware that is very easy for me to say and probably even patronising or racist. I apologise to both Helga and Nella for that! She did use an awful lot of time just thinking, but it didn't seem to be structured thinking as in "what should I do with my life". I think at one level she was just a confused young woman who didn't know what they wanted in life. However, she was always carrying a huge load of expectations from society about where she belonged and what she should do. Her confusion could stem from not really being able to articulate this. I have no experience with the discomfort, confusion, and racism that Helga experienced, and which is probably heavily drawn from Nella Larsen's own experience. I thought that Helga had the potential to fight back in some scenarios - intelligent and so on, but even the best would have a hard time against hundreds of years of hate and systemic racism.

Spoiler

This really is a bigger spoiler so proceed with caution if you haven't read the book...

In the last part of the book, she seems to hate Black people for their subservience, but she also despises all the trappings of white society. God is a white construct, so why do they all subjugate themselves for a non-existent being created by "those others", she seems to think. Although I was puzzled by her apparent negative attitude toward Black people, I have to respect what she is saying. She really doesn't feel comfortable anywhere, and that must be utterly horrible.

She has a really crappy life married to the pastor compared to her past experience. He sounds rather disgusting, too, especially with his lack of personal hygiene. I felt shades of the pastor in "Go Tell It On The Mountain" by James Baldwin with a minister claiming to be so true to God, yet going for sex and alcohol when he can. This pastor doesn't seem to touch alcohol, but there seems to be something latent in him about wanting women and sex. I digress. Helga doesn't even seem to care all that much about her children. She does, but in a detached sort of way. She doesn't want to abandon them because she knows the pain of abandonment. However, I think she would leave them if it was the only condition for making her escape. I am unsure if Helga suffers post-natal depression or an existential crisis after the birth of her fourth child. It could be a mix of both. But it all seems really doomed in the last line of the book when you realise that she is now pregnant with her fifth child. Helga has been struggling in the quicksand for a long time and probably wasn't even aware of it. She didn't see opportunities to extract herself, and that last sentence sounds like it will choke and smother her completely! Quite a depressing closing line!

Despite some of my practical reservations about the book, I definitely think more people should read it. Although the book came out in the 1920s, it was only translated into Danish fairly recently. A tv and radio journalist, Signe Amtoft, asked the very relevant question - why Nella Larsen was so unknown in Denmark: (article in Danish) https://heartbeats.dk/signe-amtofts-litteraturklumme-nella-larsen-burde-vaere-dansk-litteraer-kulturarv-saa-hvorfor-har-vi-aldrig-hoert-om-hende/ Nella Larsen died in obscurity in 1964 despite being considered a part of the Harlem Renaissance. The New York Times tried to catch up on past oversights by adding her obituary to their "Overlooked" project: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/obituaries/overlooked-nella-larsen.html. In 2021, Rebecca Hall is making her director debut with the movie "Passing" based on the other book I mentioned earlier. Maybe that get more people to read Nella Larsen's words.

It is Nella Larsen's voice that needs to be heard. Not mine.

Passing is an incontrovertible story. Once you have read it, you cannot unread that experience and anxiety and complete self-denial.