Quicksand by Nella Larsen

“As the days multiplied, her need of something, something vaguely familiar, but which she could not put a name to and hold for definite examination, became almost intolerable.”

re-read:
Larsen excels at disquiet atmosphere. The unease is positively palpable here. Larsen’s presents her readers with an unstinting character study of a deeply alienated woman whose estrangement from herself and others lead her to become increasingly detached. There are instances were Larsen is lethally precise in capturing Helga’s perspective and in articulating her thought pattern. Helga’s mind is more often than not an unpleasant and or depressing place, as she views the world around her with the kind vitriol and misanthropy you can expect from the likes of Esther Greenwood. But there are also moments were Helga’s inner workings are inaccessible to us. There is something volatile and deeply ambivalent about but Helga and her narrative. The narrative is always thrumming with the possibility of violence (psychological, physical), of conflict, of something worse to come. Because Helga has experienced and continues to experience such Othering, almost by default, she comes to do the same to the people in her life, with very self-sabotage-y results. Helga’s internalized racism and her vehement opposition against interracial couples and her disconnection from the people and the communities around is not necessarily portrayed in a sympathetic light but neither villainized or condemned for it. If anything Larsen allows us to see the circumstances that contributed to Helga’s alienation.
Larsen’s genius for psychology aside, I once again felt frustrated by the overall pacing and the ending.

“As the days multiplied, her need of something, something vaguely familiar, but which she could not put a name to and hold for definite examination, became almost intolerable.”

Similarly to Passing, Quicksand is a study of ambivalence. But whereas Passing centered on the complex dynamic—which ranges from enmity to a kinship of sorts—between two light-skinned Black women in 1920s New York, Quicksand follows the experiences of one woman, Helga Crane, whose restlessness sees her moving from Chicago to Harlems before venturing out to Copenhagen. Helga, daughter to a white Danish mother and a Black American father, has always felt like an outsider. By the time the narrative begins, Helga’s mother is long dead and her father is MIA. Helga’s white relations refuse or are unwilling to acknowledge her existence. Her lack of ‘people’ leads her to feel a degree of alienation, even resentment, towards the Black community.

“She could neither conform, nor be happy in her unconformity.”

At the beginning of Quicksand Helga is a schoolteacher in Naxos but feels increasingly dissatisfied by her environment. She makes the impulsive decision to break things off with her beau, who also teaches at her school, and quit her job in pursuit of a more fulfilling life and perhaps a place in which she could ‘belong’ (“No family. That was the crux of the whole matter. […] If you couldn’t prove your ancestry and connections, you were tolerated, but you didn’t ‘belong’.”) Although in Harlem she makes new acquaintances and friends, Helga’s loneliness and restlessness do not dissipate. She decides to once again leave her life behind by traveling to Copenhagen to live with an Aunt.
This is more of a slow-burner than Passing. Helga is a very inward-looking character, and her narrative is light on dialogue or action. Her reflections on her identity, race, America, her unshakable unhappiness will definitely resonate with contemporary readers. Yet, Helga herself remains in many ways a bit of cypher. This is undoubtedly intentional, as the narrative underlines other characters’ impression of her (that she is elusive, ‘frigid’, standoffish). The story perhaps would have benefited from less telling and more showing (there were quite a few scenes that are summarized in a rather speedy fashion and I wish we had gotten to read witness them ‘first hand’).
Still, I love the way Nella Larsen writes. Her writing is phenomenal, her prose ranging from being elegantly perceptive (a la Edith Wharton) to searingly direct (a la Toni Morrison). The longing and ennui experienced by Helga also brought to mind the titular heroine in Madame Bovary (even in the desire they both feel towards material goods).
It is saddening that Larsen published only these two novels. Quicksand is a fascinating character study, one that manages to capture the time and places in which Helga lives. The narrative is at once opaque, never quite revealing Helga’s true feelings, and startlingly lucid, especially when it comes to conveying Helga’s self-divide.

“Life became for her only a hateful place where one lived in intimacy with people one would not have chosen had one been given choice. It was, too, an excruciating agony.”

My rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

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