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I, Mary MacLane
I, Mary MacLane—the follow-up to I Await the Devil’s Coming—available now from Melville House, with a foreword by Emily Gould
Fifteen years separate I Await the Devil’s Coming and Mary MacLane’s follow-up memoir, I, Mary MacLane (1917). They were years filled with men and affairs, drink and debauchery, war, friendship, and independence in New York and Boston. That independence was cut short by an illness that brought MacLane home to the loathed, provincial Butte, Montana, where once again she took up her pen.
In I, Mary MacLane, the national sensation told all, revealing many of the salacious details of her taste of freedom. As we now know, though, the battle for freedom had only just begun: if I Await the Devil’s Coming was a rallying cry for young girls, I, Mary MacLane was a dispatch from the front lines of early feminism. Every page speaks of the bravery of MacLane and her peers.
Just over a decade after I, Mary MacLane was published, its author died under mysterious circumstances in Chicago, having sunk from sensation to obscurity. The book remains one of the last documents we have of her life.
Fifteen years separate I Await the Devil’s Coming and Mary MacLane’s follow-up memoir, I, Mary MacLane (1917). They were years filled with men and affairs, drink and debauchery, war, friendship, and independence in New York and Boston. That independence was cut short by an illness that brought MacLane home to the loathed, provincial Butte, Montana, where once again she took up her pen.
In I, Mary MacLane, the national sensation told all, revealing many of the salacious details of her taste of freedom. As we now know, though, the battle for freedom had only just begun: if I Await the Devil’s Coming was a rallying cry for young girls, I, Mary MacLane was a dispatch from the front lines of early feminism. Every page speaks of the bravery of MacLane and her peers.
Just over a decade after I, Mary MacLane was published, its author died under mysterious circumstances in Chicago, having sunk from sensation to obscurity. The book remains one of the last documents we have of her life.
220 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1917
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About the author
Mary MacLane
49 books69 followersMary MacLane was a controversial Canadian-born American writer whose frank memoirs helped usher in the confessional style of autobiographical writing. MacLane was known as the "Wild Woman of Butte."
MacLane was a very popular author for her time, scandalizing the populace with her shocking bestselling first memoir and to a lesser extent her two following books. She was considered wild and uncontrolled, a reputation she nurtured, and was openly bisexual as well as a vocal feminist. In her writings, she compared herself to another frank young memoirist, Marie Bashkirtseff, who died a few years after MacLane was born, and H. L. Mencken called her "the Butte Bashkirtseff."
MacLane was a very popular author for her time, scandalizing the populace with her shocking bestselling first memoir and to a lesser extent her two following books. She was considered wild and uncontrolled, a reputation she nurtured, and was openly bisexual as well as a vocal feminist. In her writings, she compared herself to another frank young memoirist, Marie Bashkirtseff, who died a few years after MacLane was born, and H. L. Mencken called her "the Butte Bashkirtseff."
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 22, 2016
…You were honest since you made no pretense of any kind to yourself. You took no gold that you did not logically, humanely, or shamefully earn. You were consciously and unconsciously above all subterfuge. You wrought no ruin nor error nor darkness upon your own spirit or any other. You deceived neither yourself nor anyone about you. The tone of your life was of sun-shining simplicity and cleanness. There was no greed in you. You saw your way of life before you and lived it without degradation, with a positive of strength.___Mary MacLane from I, Mary MacLane
Though there were moments, such as the example above, of the Mary MacLane of old, this sequel to her original diary failed in providing the power expected in her writing. Perhaps she had become a bit too enamored with herself and the instant fame and notoriety her first work afforded her. This offering seemed uninspired, and perhaps that had something to do with her return to Butte, Montana. Even so, nothing will lessen for me the importance of what Mary MacLane achieved in her first book. And this proves how difficult it is for a writer of note to go on and continue to remain vital. It is no wonder she faded from the public's eye, and no fault but her own.
Though there were moments, such as the example above, of the Mary MacLane of old, this sequel to her original diary failed in providing the power expected in her writing. Perhaps she had become a bit too enamored with herself and the instant fame and notoriety her first work afforded her. This offering seemed uninspired, and perhaps that had something to do with her return to Butte, Montana. Even so, nothing will lessen for me the importance of what Mary MacLane achieved in her first book. And this proves how difficult it is for a writer of note to go on and continue to remain vital. It is no wonder she faded from the public's eye, and no fault but her own.
December 9, 2013
Summary: MacLane's last, deepest book.
To adapt my comment on I Await the Devil's Coming (also published in Melville House's Neversink series): as a long-time researcher and publisher of MacLane's work, I welcome Melville House's publication of this 1917 classic, insufficiently-understood in her time and unsurpassed to this day in communicating the inner reality of a complex, surging, sui generis spirit.
As I remarked in a recent MacLane anthology: MacLane's final book was her testament in every way and concludes the evolution begun in "I Await the Devil's Coming". She had vowed to explode out into the world from Butte, and now she turns within and ranges through her internal world. Taking her second book, the static and neutral-toned "My Friend Annabel Lee" as center, the three books balance neatly.
Written from 1911 to 1917, "I Mary" seems both impromptu and outside of time. While superficially emulating the dated-entry format of "Devil's Coming", it positions the reader in the most intimate contact MacLane would ever permit: we are with her inside herself, in - except for the first and, movingly, a later entry - an eternal tomorrow. The martial narrator of "Devil's," who stood off and upbraided the world, is long-gone; the two personae in "Annabel" have seemingly fused in order to problematize the inner world. Here, MacLane seems to say: watch my givens as they pass; below these I will not go, and they are neither good nor evil - they simply are. Yet her humor - dry, sly, strongest at her (as she might say) seriousest - never deserts us.
It is not known if MacLane read Nietzsche - her iconoclastic sometime supporter H.L. Mencken was an early American advocate, and he'd read Max Stirner - but if "I Await the Devil's Coming" was an exercise in self-assertion, "I, Mary MacLane" ventures into a self-criticism probably entirely uninfluenced by Freud.
To adapt my comment on I Await the Devil's Coming (also published in Melville House's Neversink series): as a long-time researcher and publisher of MacLane's work, I welcome Melville House's publication of this 1917 classic, insufficiently-understood in her time and unsurpassed to this day in communicating the inner reality of a complex, surging, sui generis spirit.
As I remarked in a recent MacLane anthology: MacLane's final book was her testament in every way and concludes the evolution begun in "I Await the Devil's Coming". She had vowed to explode out into the world from Butte, and now she turns within and ranges through her internal world. Taking her second book, the static and neutral-toned "My Friend Annabel Lee" as center, the three books balance neatly.
Written from 1911 to 1917, "I Mary" seems both impromptu and outside of time. While superficially emulating the dated-entry format of "Devil's Coming", it positions the reader in the most intimate contact MacLane would ever permit: we are with her inside herself, in - except for the first and, movingly, a later entry - an eternal tomorrow. The martial narrator of "Devil's," who stood off and upbraided the world, is long-gone; the two personae in "Annabel" have seemingly fused in order to problematize the inner world. Here, MacLane seems to say: watch my givens as they pass; below these I will not go, and they are neither good nor evil - they simply are. Yet her humor - dry, sly, strongest at her (as she might say) seriousest - never deserts us.
It is not known if MacLane read Nietzsche - her iconoclastic sometime supporter H.L. Mencken was an early American advocate, and he'd read Max Stirner - but if "I Await the Devil's Coming" was an exercise in self-assertion, "I, Mary MacLane" ventures into a self-criticism probably entirely uninfluenced by Freud.
June 6, 2017
♫How do you solve a problem like Mary MacLane?♫
It's difficult to review this work because I am 100% enamored by its author. Mary was a wild poet, a bisexual feminist in the early 1900s, who lived both in the desert of Butte Montana and the hustle-bustle melting pot of New York, and did not make it to her 49th birthday. She was witty, patriotic, cynical, spiritual, sexual, and desperately lonely. And in her diary are tremendous strokes of brilliance.
Her prose vibrates, even at its most pedestrian or self-indulgent (or worst, mildly racist). And despite her fall from the zeitgeist, Mary is also supremely quotable, as shown above. Now here's the rub: what's the point? She laps around the same ideas over and over and over again; I was at first very excited to read this, but as the chapters rolled along, it became clear that it was indeed a diary -- a rambling treatise on different ideas with no noticeable beat or rhythm.
However, I definitely recommend reading this, in spite of my rating. For her time, Mary was a radically vibrant spirit, and this book is quite the character study, warts and all. I roll my eyes when people say "I was born in the wrong decade!" But in this case...I think Mary would have had a ball if she had been born a century later.
It's difficult to review this work because I am 100% enamored by its author. Mary was a wild poet, a bisexual feminist in the early 1900s, who lived both in the desert of Butte Montana and the hustle-bustle melting pot of New York, and did not make it to her 49th birthday. She was witty, patriotic, cynical, spiritual, sexual, and desperately lonely. And in her diary are tremendous strokes of brilliance.
The act of walking starts an engine in my sparkling infernal mind
I have lightly kissed and been kissed by Lesbian lips in a way which filled my throat with a sudden pagan blood-flavored wistfulness, ruinous and contraband: breath of bewildering demoniac winds smothering mine.
I don't know why I do not do the Murder. I have nothing to lose by paying the law-penalty: nothing but my life, and my life is stripped bare--and was always barren by God's decree.
Her prose vibrates, even at its most pedestrian or self-indulgent (or worst, mildly racist). And despite her fall from the zeitgeist, Mary is also supremely quotable, as shown above. Now here's the rub: what's the point? She laps around the same ideas over and over and over again; I was at first very excited to read this, but as the chapters rolled along, it became clear that it was indeed a diary -- a rambling treatise on different ideas with no noticeable beat or rhythm.
However, I definitely recommend reading this, in spite of my rating. For her time, Mary was a radically vibrant spirit, and this book is quite the character study, warts and all. I roll my eyes when people say "I was born in the wrong decade!" But in this case...I think Mary would have had a ball if she had been born a century later.
March 24, 2018
In the spirit of trying to be as shocked by Mary MacLane's alleged swearing as her stuffy contemporaries, I've been re-reading bits and pieces of her canon and internally replacing all the 1900s non-event 'damns' with hearty modern 'fucks'.
The effect is really quite startling:
The effect is really quite startling:
January 8, 2023
Absolutely incredible book. Unbelievably intelligent and subtle. Her range of vocabulary alone is breathtaking. It's not a quick read, you need to savour it. It took me more than a year to finish it. Time well spent. This book and its author should be much more widely known.
February 24, 2022
3,5
amt Mary maclane
amt Mary maclane
May 24, 2023
Wasn’t my thing, didn’t finish it
November 11, 2022
Meine Meinung
Nach ihrem literarischen Debüt »Ich erwarte die Ankunft des Teufels« mit gerade einmal neunzehn Jahren und ihrer Veröffentlichung »Meine Freundin Annabel Lee« zieht die Kanadierin Mary MacLane in einer persönlichen Schrift Bilanz über sich selbst.
In ihrem Tagebuchroman »ICH: Aufzeichnungen aus meinem Menschenleben« stellt die scharfsichtige Beobachterin ihr jüngeres ›Ich‹ dem erwachsen gewordenen ›Ich‹ gegenüber, reflektiert und verschont sich dabei nicht vor ihrem eigenen kritischen Blick und einer ordentlichen Portion Selbstironie.
Kurze Kapitel, die sich zügig wegschmökern lassen, prägen auch dieses Buch der talentierten Schriftstellerin, allerdings ist der Ton im Vergleich zu ihren beiden anderen Werken deutlich melancholischer. Die Einsamkeit im ländlichen Butte als alleinstehende Frau über dreißig war zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts ein einschneidendes Erlebnis, denn zu dieser Zeit gab es wenig Optionen in dieser Lebenslage.
Ungewöhnlich offen für die damalige Zeit legt Mary MacLane ihr Innerstes offen, schreibt von ihrem Verlangen, Sehnsüchten und Wünschen und seziert dabei ihr Selbst, dessen rebellische Ader zwar immer noch deutlich spürbar ist, im Vergleich mit ihrem Debütroman aber auch sanftere Betrachtungen einschließt und in sich gekehrte Momente zulässt.
Der Tagebuch-Stil ermöglicht es aus einem Logenplatz heraus den Alltag und all die Gedanken, die die erwachsende Mary MacLane beschäftigen, zu beobachten. In ihren Stilmitteln wechselt sich die Autorin ab, mit Aufzählungen und Wiederholungen kreiert sie den Sound ihrer Tage. Ein bestechend fesselndes Zeitzeugnis für alle Leserinnen und Leser, die sich für eine starke Stimme aus der Zeit Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts und Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts interessieren.
Zwar vermochten mich nicht alle Einträge gleichermaßen zu begeistern, aber im Gesamtpaket betrachtet ist Mary MacLanes intime Bestandsaufnahme unheimlich unterhaltsam und vermittelt einen guten Eindruck ihrer Persönlichkeit, sodass man das Gefühl hat, die Schöpferin tatsächlich kennengelernt zu haben.
Fazit
Diese weibliche Stimme aus dem Übergang vom 19. ins 20. Jahrhundert verdient Aufmerksamkeit. Absolut lesenswert!
--------------------------------
© Bellas Wonderworld; Rezension vom 22.11.2021
Nach ihrem literarischen Debüt »Ich erwarte die Ankunft des Teufels« mit gerade einmal neunzehn Jahren und ihrer Veröffentlichung »Meine Freundin Annabel Lee« zieht die Kanadierin Mary MacLane in einer persönlichen Schrift Bilanz über sich selbst.
In ihrem Tagebuchroman »ICH: Aufzeichnungen aus meinem Menschenleben« stellt die scharfsichtige Beobachterin ihr jüngeres ›Ich‹ dem erwachsen gewordenen ›Ich‹ gegenüber, reflektiert und verschont sich dabei nicht vor ihrem eigenen kritischen Blick und einer ordentlichen Portion Selbstironie.
Kurze Kapitel, die sich zügig wegschmökern lassen, prägen auch dieses Buch der talentierten Schriftstellerin, allerdings ist der Ton im Vergleich zu ihren beiden anderen Werken deutlich melancholischer. Die Einsamkeit im ländlichen Butte als alleinstehende Frau über dreißig war zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts ein einschneidendes Erlebnis, denn zu dieser Zeit gab es wenig Optionen in dieser Lebenslage.
Ungewöhnlich offen für die damalige Zeit legt Mary MacLane ihr Innerstes offen, schreibt von ihrem Verlangen, Sehnsüchten und Wünschen und seziert dabei ihr Selbst, dessen rebellische Ader zwar immer noch deutlich spürbar ist, im Vergleich mit ihrem Debütroman aber auch sanftere Betrachtungen einschließt und in sich gekehrte Momente zulässt.
Der Tagebuch-Stil ermöglicht es aus einem Logenplatz heraus den Alltag und all die Gedanken, die die erwachsende Mary MacLane beschäftigen, zu beobachten. In ihren Stilmitteln wechselt sich die Autorin ab, mit Aufzählungen und Wiederholungen kreiert sie den Sound ihrer Tage. Ein bestechend fesselndes Zeitzeugnis für alle Leserinnen und Leser, die sich für eine starke Stimme aus der Zeit Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts und Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts interessieren.
Zwar vermochten mich nicht alle Einträge gleichermaßen zu begeistern, aber im Gesamtpaket betrachtet ist Mary MacLanes intime Bestandsaufnahme unheimlich unterhaltsam und vermittelt einen guten Eindruck ihrer Persönlichkeit, sodass man das Gefühl hat, die Schöpferin tatsächlich kennengelernt zu haben.
Fazit
Diese weibliche Stimme aus dem Übergang vom 19. ins 20. Jahrhundert verdient Aufmerksamkeit. Absolut lesenswert!
--------------------------------
© Bellas Wonderworld; Rezension vom 22.11.2021
November 12, 2023
I love this book, here we see a much older and more jaded Mary MacLane than in the Story of Mary MacLane.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews