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Aleta Day
Francis Marion Beynon’s autobiographical novel Aleta Dey is increasingly recognised as a small classic of early twentieth-century fiction. Beynon was a journalist and feminist much involved in public affairs in early twentieth-century Manitoba. In 1917, aged 33, she was forced to leave her job as a result of her open pacifism, and she soon moved to New York where she dropped out of the public eye. Aleta Dey , first published in 1919, tells in plain and affecting prose the story of a girl growing up in Manitoba, becoming politically conscious, and falling in love with McNair, a man of much more conventional views. The First World War brings a crisis for them both after McNair enlists as a soldier. Though Beynon was a Canadian, her spare, emotionally open prose may have less in common with that of other Canadian writers of the time than it does with the style of contemporaneous western American women writers such as Willa Cather and Laura Ingalls Wilder. Like Cather’s My Antonia , Beynon’s Aleta Dey resonates with prairie simplicity, passion, and strength.
266 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1919
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 22, 2013
Oh what a maddening book!
Maddening because there were glimpses of greatness, glimpses of what could have been a seminal work, but I wanted so much more than glimpses.
Francis Marion Benyon was a farmer’s daughter, born in 1884, who grew up to be a journalist, a suffragist, a pacifist, an activist …
This is her only novel, and it is clear from the start that it contains much that is autobiographical.
“I am coward. I think I was born to be free, but my parents, with God as one of their chief instruments of terror, frightened me into servility. Perhaps I owe it to the far horizons of my Canadian prairie birthplace; perhaps to the furious tempests that rocked our slim wooden dwelling, or it may be to the untrammelled migration of birds to distant lands that the shame of being a coward had survived their chastening. I know that these things have always beckoned to something in me that vainly beats its wings against the bars of life.”
Aleta Day was reared by parents who set out to “break her spirit” but she survived, and she tells the story of her childhood beautifully, and with an understanding of its consequences that is truly moving. She learned that appearances were everything, that she could be quietly subversive. And at school, when her friend Ned questioned the English version of history that they were taught, she learned to question everything. She grew up to be a journalist, a suffragist, a pacifist, an activist.
But I missed seeing Aleta grow from a child with ideas to a woman with convictions, because the story took a big leap forward.
Aleta Day fell in love with another journalist. A conservative journalist, a heavy drinker with an estranged wife and a young adopted son. They argued but they were happy. He went to fight in World War I and Aleta went to fight for her pacifist ideals. The ending would not be happy.
I was charmed by Aleta; she was warm, she was thoughtful, and she was so considerate of those she loved. She was prepared to live with her beliefs and accept the consequences, but she was also prepared to accept that she could be wrong. Not a coward at all.
She should have been the heroine of a seminal work, and Francis Marion Benton clearly had the experience, the understanding, the writing talent to make her that.
But the experiences that shaped her beliefs are missing. Much of what was happening in the world around her is missing. And sometimes one story of a life, an experience, an incident, says more than any statement of principle, however eloquent the statement, however right the principle.
If only I could have seen more of what Aleta saw, if only I could have heard more of her arguments with her lover…
It isn’t that this isn’t a good book. It is. I just wished it could have painted a more complete, more rounded, account of the life of Aleta Day, because if it had it might have been truly great.
Maddening because there were glimpses of greatness, glimpses of what could have been a seminal work, but I wanted so much more than glimpses.
Francis Marion Benyon was a farmer’s daughter, born in 1884, who grew up to be a journalist, a suffragist, a pacifist, an activist …
This is her only novel, and it is clear from the start that it contains much that is autobiographical.
“I am coward. I think I was born to be free, but my parents, with God as one of their chief instruments of terror, frightened me into servility. Perhaps I owe it to the far horizons of my Canadian prairie birthplace; perhaps to the furious tempests that rocked our slim wooden dwelling, or it may be to the untrammelled migration of birds to distant lands that the shame of being a coward had survived their chastening. I know that these things have always beckoned to something in me that vainly beats its wings against the bars of life.”
Aleta Day was reared by parents who set out to “break her spirit” but she survived, and she tells the story of her childhood beautifully, and with an understanding of its consequences that is truly moving. She learned that appearances were everything, that she could be quietly subversive. And at school, when her friend Ned questioned the English version of history that they were taught, she learned to question everything. She grew up to be a journalist, a suffragist, a pacifist, an activist.
But I missed seeing Aleta grow from a child with ideas to a woman with convictions, because the story took a big leap forward.
Aleta Day fell in love with another journalist. A conservative journalist, a heavy drinker with an estranged wife and a young adopted son. They argued but they were happy. He went to fight in World War I and Aleta went to fight for her pacifist ideals. The ending would not be happy.
I was charmed by Aleta; she was warm, she was thoughtful, and she was so considerate of those she loved. She was prepared to live with her beliefs and accept the consequences, but she was also prepared to accept that she could be wrong. Not a coward at all.
She should have been the heroine of a seminal work, and Francis Marion Benton clearly had the experience, the understanding, the writing talent to make her that.
But the experiences that shaped her beliefs are missing. Much of what was happening in the world around her is missing. And sometimes one story of a life, an experience, an incident, says more than any statement of principle, however eloquent the statement, however right the principle.
If only I could have seen more of what Aleta saw, if only I could have heard more of her arguments with her lover…
It isn’t that this isn’t a good book. It is. I just wished it could have painted a more complete, more rounded, account of the life of Aleta Day, because if it had it might have been truly great.
June 4, 2021
c 1919 !
Beynon 1884-1951
Said to be largely autobiographical, though Beynon's real-life love died in WW I, rather than the novel version where she dies at the hands of an anti-pacifist.
The childhood part is remarkable: 'Mother and father began when Jen and I were barely out of the cradle to perform a task called "breaking our spirit", which seemed to them essential to our well-being...my father seemed to take a solid satisfaction in the work....[It is surprising] how early one can be made into a coward. [At age five, when being reprimanded,] I boiled internally with childish rage and impotence.'"
The main character worries her whole life that she is too cowardly, fearing to argue against opposite views. Rang some bells with me.
The backdrop is Canadian politics during WW I, particularly the passing of a bill to conscript. Beynon describes the hypocrisy of fellow Canadians wanting to punish anyone not born in Canada and anyone against the war or against conscription. The government actively censored pacifist publications, it seems. The suffragist movement is a part of the story too.
"Beynon was a journalist and feminist much involved in public affairs in early twentieth-century Manitoba. In 1917, aged 33, she was forced to leave her job as a result of her open pacifism, and she soon moved to New York where she dropped out of the public eye. Aleta Dey tells in plain and affecting prose the story of a girl growing up in Manitoba, becoming politically conscious, and falling in love with McNair, a man of much more conventional views. World War I brings a crisis for them both..."
Anne Hicks: Introduction to the 1988 Virago Modern Classics edition I have:
"In constructing the character of McNair, Francis was attempting to pay tribute to a man she loved who died in the slaughter of 1916. As poignant and important as that emotional tribute may have been, it was certainly a *literary failure*. The explanation resides in the underside of late-Victorian patriarchy. An era that could produce Freud had ruthlessly suppressed women, and McNair is an infantilised, capitalist double of the Calvinist God with the Francis's father had so ruthlessly suppressed Francis's mother....McNair is a reactionary private fantasy, but he also functions as political allegory..."
Hicks is right that McNair comes across as not credible as a person, but it does make for a clear story with clear messages.
I feel lucky to have happened onto the Virago Modern Classics many years ago at the second-hand bookstore in town, De Slegte. One euro apiece, what a bargain! I bought maybe 20 of them [they had even more], and many I have not yet read, but they usually turn out to be books I am glad to have read. Virago's goal was to bring back 'forgotten' women authors.
Beynon 1884-1951
Said to be largely autobiographical, though Beynon's real-life love died in WW I, rather than the novel version where she dies at the hands of an anti-pacifist.
The childhood part is remarkable: 'Mother and father began when Jen and I were barely out of the cradle to perform a task called "breaking our spirit", which seemed to them essential to our well-being...my father seemed to take a solid satisfaction in the work....[It is surprising] how early one can be made into a coward. [At age five, when being reprimanded,] I boiled internally with childish rage and impotence.'"
The main character worries her whole life that she is too cowardly, fearing to argue against opposite views. Rang some bells with me.
The backdrop is Canadian politics during WW I, particularly the passing of a bill to conscript. Beynon describes the hypocrisy of fellow Canadians wanting to punish anyone not born in Canada and anyone against the war or against conscription. The government actively censored pacifist publications, it seems. The suffragist movement is a part of the story too.
"Beynon was a journalist and feminist much involved in public affairs in early twentieth-century Manitoba. In 1917, aged 33, she was forced to leave her job as a result of her open pacifism, and she soon moved to New York where she dropped out of the public eye. Aleta Dey tells in plain and affecting prose the story of a girl growing up in Manitoba, becoming politically conscious, and falling in love with McNair, a man of much more conventional views. World War I brings a crisis for them both..."
Anne Hicks: Introduction to the 1988 Virago Modern Classics edition I have:
"In constructing the character of McNair, Francis was attempting to pay tribute to a man she loved who died in the slaughter of 1916. As poignant and important as that emotional tribute may have been, it was certainly a *literary failure*. The explanation resides in the underside of late-Victorian patriarchy. An era that could produce Freud had ruthlessly suppressed women, and McNair is an infantilised, capitalist double of the Calvinist God with the Francis's father had so ruthlessly suppressed Francis's mother....McNair is a reactionary private fantasy, but he also functions as political allegory..."
Hicks is right that McNair comes across as not credible as a person, but it does make for a clear story with clear messages.
I feel lucky to have happened onto the Virago Modern Classics many years ago at the second-hand bookstore in town, De Slegte. One euro apiece, what a bargain! I bought maybe 20 of them [they had even more], and many I have not yet read, but they usually turn out to be books I am glad to have read. Virago's goal was to bring back 'forgotten' women authors.
February 5, 2023
I know the story contains a lot of "politics" but this is what I got out of it.
Aleta Dey struggles, as many of us do, with her beliefs and often refers to herself as a "coward", but she is nothing of the sort. She finds total unconditional love for a man, possibly her total opposite, and although they are unable to marry, due to curcumstances, their love for each other grows into "the greatest love of all".
Her internal struggles are revealed in this paragraph:
"I looked into my own heart day by day and I tried to simplify the issues, but nothing was very clear. I asked myself over and over again whether if I were to go forth and demand that we should have peace I would not be assuming the same omniscience that Pauline assumed in insisting that we must have war? Could one be sure that Nature had not found it necessary to destroy the western half of the world in order to give the power to some more idealistic people? Might not this blind stampede of death have a meaning far beyond the grasp of the present generation? And then again I would ask myself whether these were not merely excuses for my weakness with which I was trying to soothe my conscience for my inactivity, rather than arguments. Try as I would to analyse my emotions I could not be sure. From these fluctuations of my own mind I came to understand many of the inconsistencies on the other side were due to similar uncertainties. ... I saw our souls swinging on pendulums between the earthly and the spiritual worlds, dominated now by one, now by the other. ... Daily I prayed that if there was a spiritual force that came to the help of human beings it would help me to acquire the spirit of love and mercy and kindness which my mind saw so clearly were the only irresistible forces in the world."
But there came a moment when she could no longer remain silent: "So I might have muddled among to the end had not the government begun to forbid us to discuss the war at all, except favorably."
And as she further struggled with her own conscience and faith, she came to this resolution: " ... suppose I serve only my own generation, I shall serve it with such light as God has given me and, my time being a part of all time, I shall have served humanity. "
SPOILER:
"Years afterward my wife and I went out and planted flowers on their graves - pansies on hers and poppies on his, and when we went back two summers later the pansies had crept from her grave on to his and poppies from his grave on to hers. We looked at each other and smiled. 'In death they were not divided,' my wife quoted, softly."
Aleta Dey struggles, as many of us do, with her beliefs and often refers to herself as a "coward", but she is nothing of the sort. She finds total unconditional love for a man, possibly her total opposite, and although they are unable to marry, due to curcumstances, their love for each other grows into "the greatest love of all".
Her internal struggles are revealed in this paragraph:
"I looked into my own heart day by day and I tried to simplify the issues, but nothing was very clear. I asked myself over and over again whether if I were to go forth and demand that we should have peace I would not be assuming the same omniscience that Pauline assumed in insisting that we must have war? Could one be sure that Nature had not found it necessary to destroy the western half of the world in order to give the power to some more idealistic people? Might not this blind stampede of death have a meaning far beyond the grasp of the present generation? And then again I would ask myself whether these were not merely excuses for my weakness with which I was trying to soothe my conscience for my inactivity, rather than arguments. Try as I would to analyse my emotions I could not be sure. From these fluctuations of my own mind I came to understand many of the inconsistencies on the other side were due to similar uncertainties. ... I saw our souls swinging on pendulums between the earthly and the spiritual worlds, dominated now by one, now by the other. ... Daily I prayed that if there was a spiritual force that came to the help of human beings it would help me to acquire the spirit of love and mercy and kindness which my mind saw so clearly were the only irresistible forces in the world."
But there came a moment when she could no longer remain silent: "So I might have muddled among to the end had not the government begun to forbid us to discuss the war at all, except favorably."
And as she further struggled with her own conscience and faith, she came to this resolution: " ... suppose I serve only my own generation, I shall serve it with such light as God has given me and, my time being a part of all time, I shall have served humanity. "
SPOILER:
"Years afterward my wife and I went out and planted flowers on their graves - pansies on hers and poppies on his, and when we went back two summers later the pansies had crept from her grave on to his and poppies from his grave on to hers. We looked at each other and smiled. 'In death they were not divided,' my wife quoted, softly."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 21, 2021
I first encountered this book when doing research about WWI literature. I planned to read it but didn't get to it until now. While I was sorry it wasn't all about the war (it doesn't get to the start of the war until around page 150) it is an engrossing and honest autobiographical novel of a woman growing up in the prairies, and her increasing interest in politics. The style of her prose is spare and yet lyrical, and I was quite engaged as I read it. The ending shocked me, but it seemed fitting. Now hailed as a classic of early feminist writing, I think it makes a fitting addition to the Canadian literary canon, and certainly joins with Margaret Lawrence's books in putting Manitoba on the literary map.
January 17, 2018
This was way better written than the Sky Pilot trash - so much more realistic - it's slow to start but Aleta's involvement in the war with Pacifism and trying to understand her beliefs, her conflicting emotions and the great myth of the war is really interesting - and done pretty realistically - and I enjoyed all the stuff about the church as persecutor and how its got its own agendas - i imagine that must've been controversial in its day :D - not so much about women's rights but it's there, all over the place - but it didn't seem to be the forefront of Aleta's criticisms
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 8, 2020
An extremely didactic Canadian semi-novel about feminism, free-thinking, teetotalism, pacifism, and other social issues of the early 20th century. It was a quick read and I am not sorry that I read it, but it did not do a lot for me.
March 22, 2017
This is the female equivalent of The Catcher and the Rye. Mandatory reading for all young women.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews