Nightwood, by Djuna Barnes
New Directions Books, 1984
After reading T.S. Eliot's introduction to Djuna Barnes' novel, Nightwood, I expected a bit more than was actually delivered.
Nightwood is the complex and emotionally disturbing story of Robin Vote, and the men and women she both loves and destroys. As an early example of open writing on homosexuality, Nightwood delivers a straightforward and un-clichéd tale of relationships between women. That is perhaps one of the very remarkable points of the novel.
The character of Doctor Matthew O'Connor serves as the Greek chorus/comedic relief of the novel, lightening the mood just as one might begin to despair of Robin and her dramatic mood swings, which set her fleeing from whichever lover she was with at the time.
The doctor's monologues are at times repetitive and tedious, other times convoluted and vague, and other times wildly bawdy and crass. Most times, however, the monologues are at least an entertaining and uplifting diversion from the melodrama of Robin and her lovers.
Djuna Barnes has the soul of a poet, and this is evident when the reader gets past the novel's introductory phase (introducing characters, setting, etc.). As an example, the following is from one of the doctor's long monologues, in which he is lecturing one of Robin's cast-off lovers, Nora:
We are but skin about a wind, with muscles clenched against mortality. We sleep in long reproachful dust against ourselves. We are full to the gorge with our own names for misery. Life, the pastures in which the night feeds and prunes the cud that nourishes us to despair. Life, the permission to know death. We were created that the earth might be made sensible of her inhuman taste; and love that the body might be so dear that even the earth should roar with it.
Seen as a whole, Nightwood is a wonderful piece of literature to read. It's modernity and guts in use of social satire truly earn it the high regard it has enjoyed since its appearance nearly seventy years ago. But its strength lies in Barnes' writing style, the poetry of which eclipses any faults one might otherwise find in the novel.
