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Java Head Summary
Java Head by Joseph Hergesheimer is a novel set in early 19th-century Salem, Massachusetts, during the height of the clipper ship era. The story centers on the Ammidon family, prominent merchants involved in the China trade, and explores themes of cultural clash, family dynamics, and societal change.
Java Head Excerpt
Short Summary: In early 19th-century Salem, Massachusetts, the Ammidon family's maritime legacy faces upheaval when Captain Gerrit Ammidon returns from China with his exotic bride, Taou Yuen. Their union challenges societal norms, leading to tensions that reflect the broader cultural and economic shifts of the era.
"Very late indeed in May, but early in the morning, Laurel Ammidon lay in bed considering two widely different aspects of chairs. The day before she had been eleven, and the comparative maturity of that age had filled her with a moving disdain for certain fanciful thoughts which had given her extreme youth a decidedly novel if not an actually adventurous setting. Until yesterday, almost, she had regarded the various chairs of the house as beings endowed with life and character; she had held conversations with some, and, with a careless exterior not warranted by an inner dread, avoided others in gloomy dusks. All this, now, she contemptuously discarded. Chairs were—chairs, things to sit on, wood and stuffed cushions.
She gazed around her room, bright with the clear, sparkling light of early summer. The high white wainscoting, the gay flowered paper above, the muslin curtains stirring in the fresh breeze, were as familiar as her own hands. Yet, in some curious fashion, they had lost their old mysterious significance, an importance that had made them seem alert, waiting for her to speak or move. Now they were only walls and windows, impersonal and detached from her inner self.
Laurel dressed slowly, her mind occupied with the new dignity of eleven years. She felt a little sad, as if she had lost something precious, but the sense of growing up was undeniably pleasant. She went down the wide, polished stairway, her hand sliding on the smooth mahogany rail, and entered the dining room.
The family was already at breakfast. Her father, William Ammidon, sat behind the coffee urn, his newspaper propped against a silver toast rack. Her mother, a delicate woman with a perpetually worried expression, was pouring cream over her berries. Laurel's older sister, Camilla, neat and self-possessed at sixteen, buttered a roll with precise movements.
'Good morning,' Laurel said, sliding into her chair.
'Morning, dear,' her mother replied. 'Did you sleep well?'
'Yes, thank you.' Laurel unfolded her napkin and reached for the cereal. The conversation drifted around her—the expected arrival of Uncle Gerrit's ship, the Nautilus; the preparations for his homecoming; the latest news from China. Laurel listened, her thoughts wandering. The mention of China made her think of the exotic tales her grandfather used to tell, stories of far-off lands with strange customs and people. But even these stories seemed less magical now, touched by the same disenchantment that had altered her perception of chairs."
