My muse is not a horse

On Nick Cave, Louisa May Alcott and Popularity

'Horse Attacked by a Lion', George Stubbs, 1769 | Tate Britain

I spent the past week contending with the matter of artistic inspiration and the inter-related concepts of genius and the muse. Having recently finished teaching a module on Romantic poetry to my undergrads, I immediately dove into Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, which I am currently reading with a lovely group at

Senhora Bennet

. I make no secret of my preference of Part 01 over Part 02; Louisa herself would probably agree, since she set out to work on the second volume under a good deal of pressure, striving to write a chapter a day and sprinkling randomly acquired character traits over her girls with the same carelessness Jo March might show in dumping a tub of salt into cream.

All frustrations aside, I remain a devout re-reader of Chapter 27, “Literary Lessons”. In it, Jo, now 19, must again struggle against her family’s expectations to find her own footing as a professional author. Marmee and more pointedly, Mr March, are quite keen to press upon their daughter the importance of not writing for money or popularity. This kind of moralising about Jo’s fiction stands, of course, as one of the many unflattering ways in which the Alcotts resurface in the novel, with Louisa May working out on the page some of the more obnoxious sides of her beloved parents.

Jo breaks free, though, at least for a while. She experiments and, for some time, she is truly uninhibited in her success; unapologetic in the way she affords herself the luxury of providing her sisters and mother the things her all-too-perfect, moralistic father cannot. Her family is quite happy to indulge in her earnings, too. There is a clear tension, of course, between Jo’s muse, her artistic impulses, and the sensational fiction she realises is immensely popular and financially rewarding. At this point in her journey as a writer, though, she cannot be sure what her voice is like quite yet. She is just too green, and she should be able to experiment and enjoy the spoils of her success, which she does, until her novel overwhelms her.

Little Women turns quite meta at this point. While Louisa hid in the woods from the journalists that surrounded her house looking for the “authoress,” Jo is overwhelmed by the revision suggestions her family gives her and then by the conflicting feedback she receives from readers and critics that make her lightheaded and anxious. If that wave of visibility and attention makes Jo giddy, though, what, or who, is she writing for? While Laurie is always supportive of her creativity and never judgmental, their relationship is, ironically, spoiled by the same kind of pressure that perturbs Jo’s muse:

Girls write to ask who the little women marry, as if that were the only end and aim of a woman’s life. I won’t marry Jo to Laurie to please anyone.

Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott wrote that on 1st November 1868. In the same journal entry, she declares that she aims at writing the second volume as quickly as possible. She seems rightfully rattled by the interference of popularity; because her novel is successful and because her readers care so much, they interfere in ways that go against her own personal expectations for Jo and her sisters. Ironically, though, if the root of the problem lay on her readers’ obsession with marriage, Part 02 is a long dive into courtship. By the end of it, three sisters are married, one of them is dead. The ending of Part 1 is perfect and should have, perhaps, have been left alone. Jo and Laurie are a great perhaps, looking at each other through the mirror, but her future is not tied to wifehood in any way. Beth is feeling better. Amy is still Amy, elegant, imperious, and just a little bit messy (unlike future Amy, who is rid of all her little faults to become a “good wife”).

Who gets to say where a plot or an artwork should go, though? While trying to retain full authority over her story, Louisa ironically ties herself to her readers’ expectations, having as her goal the avoidance of fulfilling them to the best of her ability. While claiming there is more to a woman’s life than marriage, which she knew by experience, she has no idea what to make of the March girls as they become adults. In Part 1, Jo is terrified of change. She simply loathes the idea of any of them growing up. Marrying Professor Bhaer is the closest thing to doing precisely that. In their partnership, she is forever the pupil.

In the height of her desperation over losing Meg to Laurie’s unremarkable tutor, Mr Brooke, Jo says she wishes she could marry her sister instead. By embracing the financially inept, moralising Bhaer, Jo achieves the closest thing to marrying Marmee or Mr March. Bhaer wishes to direct Jo, to teach her to be more subdued, less loud, less experimental, less, well, Jo. He is even old enough to be a surrogate parent. Their partnership is supposed to be founded on intellectual balance, but Bhaer holds all the authority. Many claim she and Laurie would never work romantically and that Amy suits him better. We have no way of knowing that, because Jo and Laurie are not allowed the grace of growing up and easing into adulthood.

Jo is never certain about her feelings for her best friend, but there is enough unplatonic tension there for her to feel unsure of what is going on many, many times. In all of those occasions, her rejection is not of Laurie himself but of the very idea of romance, of growing up. But as Marmee declares they would not suit each other, Jo is refused the opportunity to work things out for herself: that seals it. To be fair, that grace is not afforded to Meg either; when she asks for some time to think over Mr Brooke’s courtship, his impulse is to impose himself upon her and to offer to teach her to love him. Don’t play with me, Meg. I didn’t think that of you. The same professoral stance is claimed by Bhaer, and marrying him is also a kindness: like Brooke, he is quite alone and in need of a “little woman” to tidy up his life. If Marmee’s main charitable actions involve feeding the starving Hummels, Jo’s will be to cater to their countrymen’s every need.

It seems painfully ironic that, while staking her claim not to compromise her own views, Louisa May Alcott effectively sacrifices her muse by tying her novel to a shallow (Amy suits Laurie better because they are both pretty and love art and Europe?) and moralising ending, much more conservative than indulging in her readers’ hopes for a Jo-Laurie romance. So what does it mean to not compromise? Is that even feasible?

In 1996, Nick Cave was nominated for the Best Male Artist category at the VMAs in a wave of mainstream success that followed the release of the exceptional Murder Ballads. This had a lot to do with Kylie Minogue and their duet in “Where the Wild Roses Grow”, of course. While many would cling to that level of attention, Cave’s reaction was to reject it wholeheartedly. Acting on that impulse, he wrote a letter to MTV, thanking them for the air play given to music videos from the album, but kindly asking them to withdraw his nomination and that “any awards or nominations for such awards that may arise in later years be presented to those who feel more comfortable with the competitive nature of these award ceremonies”.

Cave famously declared that he had a delicate relationship with his muse and that he felt the need to protect her from outside influences that had nothing to do with creativity:

She comes to me with the gift of song and in return I treat her with the respect I feel she deserves — in this case this means not subjecting her to the indignities of judgement and competition. My muse is not a horse and I am in no horse race and if indeed she was, still I would not harness her to this tumbrel — this bloody cart of severed heads and glittering prizes. My muse may spook! May bolt! May abandon me completely! [My emphasis]

Last week, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ latest album, the extraordinary Wild God, was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album, along with Best Alternative Music Performance for Song of the Lake in the Grammys. The post that announced it on Instagram garnered a number of comments that quoted from the same letter I mentioned above, with their authors questioning: so, is your muse a horse now? Some argued that Nick and the band wouldn’t care or that they would not show up at the ceremony, but, of course, a nomination follows a submission, so the nomination is not being presented to them against their will. The Bad Seeds are a collective endeavour, of course, and in 1996 MTV had awkwardly nominated only Cave. The semantics of it were not the issue though, but the idea of ranking art. Cave has gone through a lot in the 28 years that have elapsed and has even somewhat disowned his younger self on The Red Hand Files, so it would be silly to expect him to not ever change his opinion.

But while I am quite indifferent to nominations and what not, especially for established artists like Nick Cave, I remain fascinated by the gesture of refusing to perform according to expectations. As the script goes, you are supposed to be grateful and show grace when given some attention and flattery. Louisa May Alcott was equal parts delighted and disgusted by success. Her reaction was to tear her characters to pieces, in a way. If I cannot enjoy it, neither will any of you (except for Greta Gerwig and her posse, I suppose, who turned Amy into girl-boss-feminism material). Nick Cave refused to play the game for a long time until mellowing into some kind of laissez faire acceptance. Is that giving in, though? I am still wondering.