history and criticism

I am impressed with the reviews on this site because they are so deservedly glowing. I read this book when I was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin Madison, and was amazed at the creative genius this man had, as well as the destructive power of critical dismissal. Given, he may not have written the most perfectly structured novel in history, but give the guy a break. He was a professional author from a time when, even if you were a best seller, it only paid just enough to get by. He had to hurry his output to keep up with his grumbling stomach. However, as far as pure entertainment value, and heart stopping plot twists he is second to none. This man should definitely be read more and given more credit as the grand-father of gothic writing. Given, he is nowhere near Poe, but who is? He is far ahead of his time (late 18th century) in psychological exploration and X-files-esque ponderings. If you want a book that will entertain, frighten, and shock you look no further. I also highly recommended Memoirs of a Sleepwalker if you liked this novel and are looking for something along the same lines.

Charles Brockden Brown's first novel, 1798's "Wieland," is an outstanding, riveting work fraught with anxieties over the new American nation and its enlightened foundations. Set sometime between 1763 and 1775, "Wieland" is narrated by Clara Wieland, and concerns the fate of her family and friends - her brother Theodore, and their friends Pleyel and Catharine. Clara is a woman born and raised into a secure world of enlightenment rationality. She is a model of Wollstonecraftian feminism - educated, astute, and benevolent.

Clara's narrative begins with a recitation of her family history - her Anglo-German roots and an account of the family's migration to the American colonies, to wit, Pennsylvania. Following an account of her father's religious enthusiasm and apparent spontaneous combustion, Clara shows herself and her brother, who equally partition the family estate, living in perfectly rational harmony. The estate of Mettingen is an enlightened utopia, where the Wielands and the Pleyels discuss literature and virtue, completely oblivious to the outside world. Though Philadelphia is not far away, the concerns of the city, of commerce, and of politics are not theirs.

Their ordered world is soon upset by the manifestation of mysterious disembodied voices around the estate. Shortly thereafter, Carwin, a rustic stranger with remarkable intelligence and a shrouded past, enters their isolated society.

In "Wieland," Brown calls into question the enlightened basis of the still new American government. With fresh knowledge of the failure of the French Revolution, subsequent uprisings in Ireland, and an intense fascination with the radical political philosophies of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, "Wieland" powerfully engages and synthesizes the currents of its time. With all the trappings of psychological gothic trauma, Brown, a resident of a nation conceived in liberty, asks whether the ideological break between a rational new world and a traditional, superstitious old world actually changes anything in human nature.

Charles Brockden Brown deserves to be more widely read. Wieland is a very powerful, forceful novel that left a very deep impression on me. It is about a group of Americans in the 1760s who are haunted by mysterious voices that seem to have some sort of control over their fates. Theodore Wieland's misplaced devotion to these voices ultimately destroys him. Taken as a whole, the novel is a bleak commentary on undeserved loyalty and self-imposed destiny. Contrary to Andrew E. Kent, I thought the "confession" was psychologically appropriate and consistent with the confessor's character. Notice also how he purposely did not confess to everything connected with the voices, even though his complete guilt is demonstrated later by his actions in the novel's climax. The other novella, the Memoirs of Carwin, is unfinished and rough in some parts, but is not without vitality. It is about ventriloquism and secret societies. I recommend that you read Wieland, and I have been encouraged by Brown's novel to buy "Three Gothic Novels," published by the Library of America, so I can read Edgar Huntly and Arthur Mervyn as well.