When Maxwell Bodenheim's publisher was hauled into court on an obscenity charge for the novel Replenishing Jessica, the book — all 272 pages of it — was read out to the jury. The result was almost instant acquittal. Many of the jurors had trouble keeping their eyes open during the recitation of the "evidence." I think I know how they must have felt during that 1925 trial, having just taken a seeming eternity to finish this 1930 effort of 260 pages. The theme is hammered from the opening page: a 17-year-old girl in 1900 who is vital and alive and yearns to live genuinely and fully, against a stultifying and prudish cast of adults who are dead, dead, dead inside. The prose is heavily ornamented with adjectives, as befits Bodenheim's poetical past, and often overheated. But it is a fire that gives off little light.
The ending, however, is effective, and Bodenheim offers a critique of mass media that still stands today when he has the girl (listening to records) think: "If you could sit down in a chair all the time and have everything brought to you — sights, music, words — you'd never have any adventures yourself ... just eat up the bold or laughy things other people were saying ... just be an open bag — everything pouring in, nothing coming out ... couldn't keep yourself from getting fat and dull and crazy ... " Sounds like a kid with an XBox.
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