Book Review: "Nightwood" by Djuna Barnes

There are many books I love. I could easily compile a list of a hundred or more books that, for whatever reason, I adore. Some spoke to my own experience, dispelling my loneliness or despair; others were vibrantly written and entertainingly executed; and still others were just plain fun. Most are a combination of one or more of these elements.

But there are few books out there that are intense and powerful enough to shake me to my very core. These books are rare, and when I am lucky enough to come across one, my soul feels like it's been gripped by two great massive hands, shaken with ferocity, and placed back in upside-down. Just as when I see an exceptional movie, or an extraordinary painting, these books challenge and inspire me to leap from my seat and view the world through newer, clearer eyes. These books are hard to find in our short-attention-span, superficial world of John Grishams and Danielle Steeles. But they're out there. For me, they are books like "The Golden Notebook" (Doris Lessing), "Diary of a Young Girl" (Anne Frank), "Becoming A Man" (Paul Monette), and "The Hours" (Michael Cunningham). These books engage and enrage, entertain and empathize: they unlock vital aspects of myself, and the world, to which I had not previously been aware. In short, these books are life-changing.

To the above-mentioned list, I now add "Nightwood" by Djuna Barnes.

I had never heard of Barnes until several months ago, when I read a biography of art patron Peggy Guggenheim. Barnes was a supporting, though pivotal, player in Guggenheim's history. Peggy financially supported Djuna for most of her life, and one can only assume Guggenheim's affection was reciprocated: "Nightwood" is dedicated to her. The two women traveled in creative, bohemian circles of the greatest writers and surrealist artists of their time.

The influence of these comrades is evident in "Nightwood", a work of psychological surrealism first published in 1937. As with any exceptional painting, the power of "Nightwood" is not as easily seen in the details, as it is in the stepping-away from the details. The book is meticulous, down to the finest pinpricks of emotional nuance, and getting lost or bogged down in them is easy. What I found is that once you step back, you begin to see the awesome human landscape Barnes has created. "Nightwood" is a surrealist painting in words.

After doing a bit of homework on Barnes, I got my hands on a copy of "Nightwood", which is her most famous work. Though it has never been a commercially successful book, it has always been regarded as a literary masterpiece. But because of its lack of mainstream appeal, as well as its taboo-for-the-time plot points (lesbianism, feminism, cross-dressing, psychoanalysis), its status as a classic has been relegated to mostly underground acclaim.

T.S. Eliot wrote the introduction to "Nightwood", and in it he gives what is perhaps the best piece of advice one can take before starting the book. Eliot urges us not to take in the story as a reader, but rather as a poet. I daresay that only those who can appreciate poetry will appreciate what Barnes does with her seminal novel. It is tremendously -- oftentimes frustratingly -- complex. The aforementioned dedication to detail can be quite maddening: there are so many intricate ideas laid out that wrapping your mind around all of them is downright impossible. The book is a scant 170 pages, but it took me nearly a week to read. I found myself having to go back and reread sentences, paragraphs, even whole chapters over again. Even 70+ years later, "Nightwood" spills over with new, exciting, dangerous, and fascinating ideas.

The book chronicles five starkly different people caught up in the orbit of an enigmatic, mesmerizing woman named Robin Vote. There is her husband, the artificial baron Felix Volkbein, and their sensitive, unstable son Guido. There is her lover, the heartbroken and bereft Nora Flood. There is another lover, the unoriginal Jenny Petherbridge (nicknamed "The Squatter" for her lack of original thought and the way she lifts aspects of other people's identities). And then there is Robin's philosophizing, transvestite doctor, Matthew O'Connor, who isn't really a doctor at all. Sound confusing? Well, it is.

But it's also one of the most captivating, beautiful novels ever written. Calling Barnes' style "prose" is doing a great disservice; it really is poetry. The words are lush, thick, enchanting: you feel as if you are not reading, but swimming through her sentences. Her talent for describing both the epic and mundane is unparalleled in anything I've ever read; her every word has been chosen and weighed with great care. The images Barnes paints are deliberate, planned, and memorable.

This is also the novel's great challenge. Dr. O'Connor's role in the book can be declared a sort of Greek chorus. He seems to know intimately every aspect of the other characters' lives, and he uses these lives to expound upon his endless philosophies and conclusions about human nature. He does this through a series of conversations, which are really more monologues, since he has a habit of overpowering everyone with his interesting, though often confusing, ideas. I can't say I even scratched the tip of what the good doctor was theorizing.

Perhaps that's why I loved this book so much. "Nightwood" doesn't pander to the lowest common denominator. Barnes was no dummy, and she knew her readers wouldn't be either. Her story tests us in a way that most books don't. It pushes our buttons, forces us out of our comfort zones, and shows us human nature -- and, by extension, our own individual nature -- warts and all. It does so unapologetically and with great élan.

Don't go into "Nightwood" expecting an easy ride (I was so lost and flustered in the first chapter that I debated abandoning the book; thank God I didn't). Swim through the words and let them wash over your skin. Some will soak in immediately, more will be absorbed in the stepping-back. But even more will remain like the novel's heroine: aloof, seductive, and unforgettable.