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Miss MacIntosh, My Darling: Volume One
This novel is one of the most ambitious and remarkable literary achievements of our time. It is a picaresque, psychological novel—a novel of the road, a journey or voyage of the human spirit in its search for reality in a world of illusion and nightmare. It is an epic of what might be called the Arabian Nights of American life. Marguerite Young's method is poetic, imagistic, incantatory; in prose of extraordinary richness she tests the nature of her characters—and the nature of reality.
Miss MacIntosh, My Darling is written with oceanic music moving at many levels of consciousness and perception; but the toughly fibred realistic fabric is always there, in the happenings of the narrative, the humor, the precise details, the definitions of the characters. Miss MacIntosh herself, who hails from What Cheer, Iowa, and seems downright and normal, with an incorruptible sense of humor and the desire to put an end to phantoms; Catherine Cartwheel, the opium lady, a recluse who is shut away in a great New England seaside house and entertains imaginary guests; Mr. Spitzer, the lawyer, musical composer and mystical space traveler, a gentle man, wholly unsure of himself and of reality; his twin brother Peron, the gay and raffish gambler and virtuoso in the world of sports; Cousin Hannah, the horsewoman, balloonist, mountain-climber and militant Boston feminist, known as Al Hamad through all the seraglios of the East; Titus Bonebreaker of Chicago, wild man of God dreaming of a heavenly crown; the very efficient Christian hangman, Mr. Weed of the Wabash River Valley; a featherweight champion who meets his equal in a graveyard—these are a few who live with phantasmagorical vividness in the pages of Miss MacIntosh, My Darling.
The novel touches on many aspects of life—drug addiction, woman's suffrage, murder, suicide, pregnancy both real and imaginary, schizophrenia, many strange loves, the psychology of gambling, perfectionism; but the profusion of this huge book serves always to intensify the force of the central question: "What shall we do when, fleeing from illusion, we are confronted by illusion?" What is real, what is dream? Is the calendar of the human heart the same as that kept by the earth? Is it possible that one may live a secondary life of which one does not know?
In every aspect, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling stands by itself—in the lyric beauty of its prose, its imaginative vitality and cumulative emotional power. It is the work of a writer of genius.
Miss MacIntosh, My Darling is written with oceanic music moving at many levels of consciousness and perception; but the toughly fibred realistic fabric is always there, in the happenings of the narrative, the humor, the precise details, the definitions of the characters. Miss MacIntosh herself, who hails from What Cheer, Iowa, and seems downright and normal, with an incorruptible sense of humor and the desire to put an end to phantoms; Catherine Cartwheel, the opium lady, a recluse who is shut away in a great New England seaside house and entertains imaginary guests; Mr. Spitzer, the lawyer, musical composer and mystical space traveler, a gentle man, wholly unsure of himself and of reality; his twin brother Peron, the gay and raffish gambler and virtuoso in the world of sports; Cousin Hannah, the horsewoman, balloonist, mountain-climber and militant Boston feminist, known as Al Hamad through all the seraglios of the East; Titus Bonebreaker of Chicago, wild man of God dreaming of a heavenly crown; the very efficient Christian hangman, Mr. Weed of the Wabash River Valley; a featherweight champion who meets his equal in a graveyard—these are a few who live with phantasmagorical vividness in the pages of Miss MacIntosh, My Darling.
The novel touches on many aspects of life—drug addiction, woman's suffrage, murder, suicide, pregnancy both real and imaginary, schizophrenia, many strange loves, the psychology of gambling, perfectionism; but the profusion of this huge book serves always to intensify the force of the central question: "What shall we do when, fleeing from illusion, we are confronted by illusion?" What is real, what is dream? Is the calendar of the human heart the same as that kept by the earth? Is it possible that one may live a secondary life of which one does not know?
In every aspect, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling stands by itself—in the lyric beauty of its prose, its imaginative vitality and cumulative emotional power. It is the work of a writer of genius.
618 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
13 people are currently reading
185 people want to read
About the author
Marguerite Young
16 books77 followersMarguerite Vivian Young was an American author of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and criticism. Her work evinced an interest in the American identity, social issues, and environmentalism.
Her first book of poetry was published in 1937, while she was teaching high-school English in Indianapolis. In that same year, she visited New Harmony, Indiana, the site of two former utopian communities, where her mother and stepfather resided. She relocated to New Harmony and spent seven years there, beginning work on Angel in the Forest, a study of utopian concepts and communities.
Angel in the Forest was published in 1945 to universal acclaim, winning the Guggenheim and Newberry Library awards. Over the next fifty years, while maintaining an address in New York's Greenwich Village, she traveled extensively and wrote articles, poetry, and book reviews for numerous magazines and newspapers. She was also renowned as a teacher of writing at a number of venues, including the New School for Social Research and Fordham University.
Marguerite Young's epic novel, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, was informed by her concept of history and pluralistic psychology, as well as her poetic prose style with its many layers of images and languages.
Her first book of poetry was published in 1937, while she was teaching high-school English in Indianapolis. In that same year, she visited New Harmony, Indiana, the site of two former utopian communities, where her mother and stepfather resided. She relocated to New Harmony and spent seven years there, beginning work on Angel in the Forest, a study of utopian concepts and communities.
Angel in the Forest was published in 1945 to universal acclaim, winning the Guggenheim and Newberry Library awards. Over the next fifty years, while maintaining an address in New York's Greenwich Village, she traveled extensively and wrote articles, poetry, and book reviews for numerous magazines and newspapers. She was also renowned as a teacher of writing at a number of venues, including the New School for Social Research and Fordham University.
Marguerite Young's epic novel, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, was informed by her concept of history and pluralistic psychology, as well as her poetic prose style with its many layers of images and languages.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
March 6, 2016
Spectacular - one of the greatest reading experiences I've had thus far. The kind of book that takes much longer than it might due to head-shaking re-reads of roughly every line in five.
September 9, 2018
I like to think of myself as a 'with it' gentleman of learning whose areas or knowledge and pedestrian quasi-expertise cover a wide swath, so I feel confident in saying that Marguerite Young's is a name that has been pretty widely forgotten. I don't come to Young as a curious buccaneer turned on by the plaudits and sundry accolades of scholars and fellow travelers. You see, I discovered the twin volumes of MISS MACINTOSH, MY DARLING cold, at a favourite bookstore of mine which happens to have a few shelves entirely dedicated to Dalkey Archive, that most beloved of publishers. These two hefty books (the 1999 second Dalkey editions) has little orange mark-down stickers on them indicating that the bookstore was intent on moving them at a steal. Read the blurbs. Read the back cover. How do you not just buy these sonsabitches promptly under such conditions, no questions asked? Many people reviewing this book here on Goodreads--most often raving about it, singing its praises, whatnot--suggest they are going to take some time to decompress and come back to Volume Two at a later date. Most clearly have not done this. Go look at the reviews (or lack pretty much thereof) and scant ratings of Volume Two here on ye goo' ol' Goodreads. Ach. Many, it would seem, have been defeated. I am tempted to not blame them. This is supremely hefty stuff. It is like placing a raw, pink psyche in a sensory deprivation tank. If you do not wholly submit to it, it might do mean violence unto you. I am made of robust psychic materials. I promise you, dear reader, that I am beginning Volume Two immediately and will probably finish it pretty quickly. What is this 1,198 page behemoth from the standpoint of a man who has just scaled its first 618-page peak? You almost want to call it an Outsider Art Prose Poem. But not so fast. Outsider Art? Oh, please. The woman taught at the fuggin' Iowa Writers' Workshop and hobnobbed with many a capital-n Name. Sure, she has gone out to produce some pretty weird literature in a wholly individual manner, but she has clearly assimilated a good bit of the canon. That being said, I do get the distinct impression that she was a bit of a kook. We have plenty of delightful, mind-thrumping evidence of it in these pages. I hear tell that she didn't like being compared to James Joyce. I don't blame here. There is nothing of ULYSSES here. None of that novel's architectural excrescence, with ungainly pieces jutting everywhere, and bare minimum (as I see it) of organizing aesthetic principal. No. You could make a case, however, that MISS MACINTOSH is almost a vastly-more-accessible work along the lines of FINNEGANS WAKE. Both invoke the composition of music, and Marguerite definitely has some "riverrun" running through her veins. Her novel has a magical witchcraft thrust. It feels like it has been forged in a cauldron then liberally lubricated. It glides. William Goyen, a big fan (and himself author of one of the very finest stream-of-consciousness novels I have ever read), invokes hypnosis. He's not joshing. This woman is a snake-charmer. She plumb cobra'd me. You probably do need to know that when I earlier said that the book is a kind of prose poem I very much meant you to understand that it is not a narrative work in any remote sense. Oh, it tricks you. It begins with a woman on a bus who would appear to be going somewhere. Maybe she is. The thread is quickly lost. What we have instead is an incantatory work that eddies and circles and situates a very few rich characters at their respective (inconstant) cosmic coordinates. A lots of words are repeated over and over as the spell is cast. Obvious poetry-friendly words like "dream" and "star" return and return again, as do stranger ones like "empearled" and "phaeton." Or "starfish." Or, amusingly, both "cartwheel" and "cart wheel." Words as themes in the musical sense. There is a lot else going on here that is theme in the musical sense. I'm gonna get real highfalutin here and tell you now that I think this is a very Hegelian work. Hegel perplexes and discomfits me. But I more or less get it. And what is Hegelian about MISS MACINTOSH is its fascinating mobilization of the coincidence of opposites. (The Absolute would also have to be considered a concern.) Night and day (when she says night illuminates she is not being metaphorical), dream and reality, life and death. Dream is central. So are life and death. Anaïs Nin describes the book as testament to Calderon's assertion that "Life is a dream." Ah. But Marguerite also tells us that the dream is a dream's dream. She also literally asks the central question of David Lynch's TWIN PEAKS: "who is the dreamer?" An eminently metaphysical conundrum. As for life and death and their coincidence: seriously. She puts the living person and their dead self within the exact same frame of temporal reference, flat-out coexisting. And it's not confusing. It's poetry. She says, in contravention of the popular reading, that when we die it is then that the soul and the body are united at last. Poetry. I called it poetry. I wasn't fucking around. Very opaque, musical, intensive, nearly impossible to reduce. Opaque? One of my favourite lines: "The fog was where all walked who walked, and the nights were long." She wants you to know that the stars would probably be better left under the water where they are. The dead moon is the ensign of deathless love. If you don't want to get ravished (or ravaged) by submitting to the entirety of MISS MACINTOSH, please go and immediately read that long paragraph about music on pages 544 and 545. "The music of the sea whispered to dead sea shells," it begins. She speaks of one character's "startlingly personal oblivion." Every character in the book is situated within a startlingly personal oblivion. I think this is why Miss MacIntosh is so revered and deeply missed by our nominal narrator, Vera Cartwheel (who is a woman as well as an intimate collectivity). Miss MacIntosh is the figure who represents a tether to reality within this maelstrom. OK. This is an interminably long review for a review of half a work. Moving on to Volume Two. Stand by.
November 6, 2016
Certainly one of the best things I've ever read. Though it'll take a while to get my head around even this first 600 pages. Will have to take a break before surging into the second half. Probably in the new year. 'Til then Miss Mac, 'til then.
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January 9, 2015Description:
This novel is one of the most ambitious and remarkable literary achievements of our time. It is a picaresque, psychological novel—a novel of the road, a journey or voyage of the human spirit in its search for reality in a world of illusion and nightmare. It is an epic of what might be called the Arabian Nights of American life. Marguerite Young's method is poetic, imagistic, incantatory; in prose of extraordinary richness she tests the nature of her characters—and the nature of reality.
Miss MacIntosh, My Darling is written with oceanic music moving at many levels of consciousness and perception; but the toughly fibred realistic fabric is always there, in the happenings of the narrative, the humor, the precise details, the definitions of the characters. Miss MacIntosh herself, who hails from What Cheer, Iowa, and seems downright and normal, with an incorruptible sense of humor and the desire to put an end to phantoms; Catherine Cartwheel, the opium lady, a recluse who is shut away in a great New England seaside house and entertains imaginary guests; Mr. Spitzer, the lawyer, musical composer and mystical space traveler, a gentle man, wholly unsure of himself and of reality; his twin brother Peron, the gay and raffish gambler and virtuoso in the world of sports; Cousin Hannah, the horsewoman, balloonist, mountain-climber and militant Boston feminist, known as Al Hamad through all the seraglios of the East; Titus Bonebreaker of Chicago, wild man of God dreaming of a heavenly crown; the very efficient Christian hangman, Mr. Weed of the Wabash River Valley; a featherweight champion who meets his equal in a graveyard—these are a few who live with phantasmagorical vividness in the pages of Miss MacIntosh, My Darling.
The novel touches on many aspects of life—drug addiction, woman's suffrage, murder, suicide, pregnancy both real and imaginary, schizophrenia, many strange loves, the psychology of gambling, perfectionism; but the profusion of this huge book serves always to intensify the force of the central question: "What shall we do when, fleeing from illusion, we are confronted by illusion?" What is real, what is dream? Is the calendar of the human heart the same as that kept by the earth? Is it possible that one may live a secondary life of which one does not know?
Opening: The bus-driver was whistling, perhaps in anticipation of his wife, who would be a woman with ample breasts, those of a realized maturity.
This novel is one of the most ambitious and remarkable literary achievements of our time. It is a picaresque, psychological novel—a novel of the road, a journey or voyage of the human spirit in its search for reality in a world of illusion and nightmare. It is an epic of what might be called the Arabian Nights of American life. Marguerite Young's method is poetic, imagistic, incantatory; in prose of extraordinary richness she tests the nature of her characters—and the nature of reality.
Miss MacIntosh, My Darling is written with oceanic music moving at many levels of consciousness and perception; but the toughly fibred realistic fabric is always there, in the happenings of the narrative, the humor, the precise details, the definitions of the characters. Miss MacIntosh herself, who hails from What Cheer, Iowa, and seems downright and normal, with an incorruptible sense of humor and the desire to put an end to phantoms; Catherine Cartwheel, the opium lady, a recluse who is shut away in a great New England seaside house and entertains imaginary guests; Mr. Spitzer, the lawyer, musical composer and mystical space traveler, a gentle man, wholly unsure of himself and of reality; his twin brother Peron, the gay and raffish gambler and virtuoso in the world of sports; Cousin Hannah, the horsewoman, balloonist, mountain-climber and militant Boston feminist, known as Al Hamad through all the seraglios of the East; Titus Bonebreaker of Chicago, wild man of God dreaming of a heavenly crown; the very efficient Christian hangman, Mr. Weed of the Wabash River Valley; a featherweight champion who meets his equal in a graveyard—these are a few who live with phantasmagorical vividness in the pages of Miss MacIntosh, My Darling.
The novel touches on many aspects of life—drug addiction, woman's suffrage, murder, suicide, pregnancy both real and imaginary, schizophrenia, many strange loves, the psychology of gambling, perfectionism; but the profusion of this huge book serves always to intensify the force of the central question: "What shall we do when, fleeing from illusion, we are confronted by illusion?" What is real, what is dream? Is the calendar of the human heart the same as that kept by the earth? Is it possible that one may live a secondary life of which one does not know?
Opening: The bus-driver was whistling, perhaps in anticipation of his wife, who would be a woman with ample breasts, those of a realized maturity.
May 5, 2018
I thought about giving 4 stars, or maybe 4 1/2, because after 600 pages I'm only half done with this epic literary experience, and I'm exhausted. But that's just hedging my bets, while the truth is, I have never in my life read anything -- this collection of words and paragraphs and chapters and thoughts and illusions and nightmares and dreams and wonderings -- so fascinating, astounding, confounding, and frustrating. One of the few reviewers mentioned that they had to re-read one out of every five sentences because it was so beautiful, so surprising. Yes. It's like that.
I have to take a break before I move on to volume 2. I read this with a small group of other Marguerite Young admirers, which made it an even better experience. I recommend others do the same... there are so many questions and amazements aroused by this book it's almost impossible not to have to share each brilliant moment.
I have to take a break before I move on to volume 2. I read this with a small group of other Marguerite Young admirers, which made it an even better experience. I recommend others do the same... there are so many questions and amazements aroused by this book it's almost impossible not to have to share each brilliant moment.
April 10, 2020
A rare DNF, not because I didn't feel like slogging through it (although I didn't), but because a printer's error duplicated pp. 219-250, with the second set appearing in place of pp. 251-282. Not sure if this exists in all copies of my printing (Dalkey Archive, 1999, 2nd ed., paperback), or if my thrift-store copy (from Goodwill Industries NWNC on Amazon Marketplace) was a mutant. Plot is not essential to this modernist epic, but I felt that finishing it without the 30 pages wasn't worth the effort it entailed.
Young's prose is beautiful in small doses, but punishing in a long, plotless, stream of consciousness. Incantative and repetitive, it describes a woman named Vera Cartwheel on a bus somewhere in the Midwest, remembering her upbringing in What Cheer, Iowa, her convalescent mother, stepfather overshadowed by his late brother, and her totemic, austere nanny, the Miss MacIntosh of the title. She recalls a very religious midwestern education, her memories tinged sepia with a sort of general melancholia on the edge of sentimentality. 400 pages (plus another volume) short, I reluctantly pulled the plug; darkly wondering if the misprint would have happened to a more interesting author. Maybe I'll return to this one day if an audiobook version comes out.
Young's prose is beautiful in small doses, but punishing in a long, plotless, stream of consciousness. Incantative and repetitive, it describes a woman named Vera Cartwheel on a bus somewhere in the Midwest, remembering her upbringing in What Cheer, Iowa, her convalescent mother, stepfather overshadowed by his late brother, and her totemic, austere nanny, the Miss MacIntosh of the title. She recalls a very religious midwestern education, her memories tinged sepia with a sort of general melancholia on the edge of sentimentality. 400 pages (plus another volume) short, I reluctantly pulled the plug; darkly wondering if the misprint would have happened to a more interesting author. Maybe I'll return to this one day if an audiobook version comes out.
August 21, 2019
I didn't much care for this. I can recognize the impressiveness of the technical achievement without having really been able to enjoy it much. This would have worked better as a slim book, and is downright mind numbing at 618 pages. By the time I get to end of a sentence, I don't care what it's about anymore. It simply bores me and I keep going just to get done. I'm still going to read Volume Two just because I hate not finishing books and hopefully it gets more interesting, but I doubt it. Sure, Young COULD do this technical thing...I just wish she hadn't.
November 24, 2020
One of the most perplexingly overflowing books I've read ‽‽‽‽‽‽‽ She's taken all the words I could ever (hope to) think of
March 22, 2022
There is no Either/Or in 'Miss MacIntosh, My Darling' – it is both X and Not-X. All possibilities, all potentialities exist at once in a timeless reality that IS and IS-NOT, in a universe that MAY or MAY NOT exist.
“Life could be a dream, Sh-Boom, Sh-Boom.” – The Chords
I've got the 1999 Dalkey 2-volume 2nd edition -- perhaps to be replaced by the Dalkey one-volume reprint later this year. So it's on to V2 of 'Miss MacIntosh, My Darling.'
“Life could be a dream, Sh-Boom, Sh-Boom.” – The Chords
I've got the 1999 Dalkey 2-volume 2nd edition -- perhaps to be replaced by the Dalkey one-volume reprint later this year. So it's on to V2 of 'Miss MacIntosh, My Darling.'
January 14, 2014
Vol. 1 - Miss MacIntosh, My Darling
Rating: 4.5 stars
I truly enjoyed reading Volume I. It was beautifully written with lyrical prose so profound and lovely I felt compelled to stop and savor each line. Volume I loosely examines political, theological, psychological and existential issues, including birth, death, and marriage from various points of view. My book of literary quotes has grown by leaps and bounds. I am giving this book 4 ½ stars, though it probably deserves five. I am holding out for my final analysis with the reading of Volume II.
Rating: 4.5 stars
I truly enjoyed reading Volume I. It was beautifully written with lyrical prose so profound and lovely I felt compelled to stop and savor each line. Volume I loosely examines political, theological, psychological and existential issues, including birth, death, and marriage from various points of view. My book of literary quotes has grown by leaps and bounds. I am giving this book 4 ½ stars, though it probably deserves five. I am holding out for my final analysis with the reading of Volume II.
August 16, 2024
This book will be on my bedside table forever. Astoundingly good mid-century American English. Not the great American novel, but a great American novel. I don't often copy sentences out of books, but I have scores from this one.
March 1, 2018
An exhaustive, enjoyable and often infuriating read. I found the first 300 pages flew by, due to the wonderful prose and poetry, however, from then on and in particular, Cousin Hannah's death, it proved rather repetitive and laborious. An alternate title for this book could be, "Perhaps"? A word, which takes the reader on circuitous journeys and meanderings, some of which, are golden. The style reads and sounds very much like Dylan Thomas, (I had visions of Richard Burton narrating this over the radio!). I hope the emphasis shifts slightly for Volume 2?
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June 20, 2011Wow! This is a really different reading experience.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews