Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott (1818)

This is a famous novel and I am divided in mind about it. It has Scott's trademark largesse and broad richness. It also has his trademark diffusion. The element which most strongly comes to mind that it particularly displays is an accentuation of that in the novels by the author I have read thus far (I am slowly reading through Virtue's Dryburgh Edition from 1904), the slow-growing Waverley and Guy Mannering and the far zestier The Antiquary. This is his wandering habit, whereby a character is introduced and is clearly in Scott's mind being built up to serve a significant dramatic purpose. Then his mind wanders, or the purported drama doesn't quite fit a newer plan, and the character is dropped or backgrounded while fresher vistas are plumbed. Somehow with Scott we forgive this; there is some relish of life, sparkiness of mind in him which means that this permanent deviation matters a lot less than it would with a less joyful author. The cases here are the stories of Rashleigh Osbaldistone and Diana Vernon particularly. Rashleigh's intricate two-faced manoeuvrings and Diana's no-less-than-heroine stature are belied in the time they are given in the ultimate half of the novel. But after all is said and done it's Scott, and still a joy...

Commonplace Book

'...The doctor's prescriptions had always the formidable aspect of an indictment. On a big white sheet of paper such as schoolboys use, his directions exhibited themselves in numerous paragraphs of two or three lines each, in an irregular handwriting, bristling with letters resembling spikes. And the potions, the pills, the powders, which were to be taken fasting in the morning, at midday, and in the evening, followed in ferocious-looking characters.

One of these prescriptions might read:
"Inasmuch as M.X. is affected with a chronic malady, incurable and mortal, he will take, first, sulphate of quinine, which will render him deaf, and will make him lose his memory; secondly, bromide of potassium, which will destroy his stomach, weaken all his faculties, cover him with pimples, and make his breath foul; thirdly, salicylate of soda, whose curative effects have not yet been proved, but which seems to lead to a terrible and speedy death the patient treated by this remedy. And concurrently, chloral, which causes insanity, and belladonna, which attacks the eyes; all vegetable solutions and all mineral compositions which corrupt the blood, corrode the organs, consume the bones, and destroy by medicine those whom disease has spared."'

from Mont Oriol by Guy de Maupassant (Chapter I)

Commonplace Book

'...placing myself in one of the large leathern chairs which flanked the old Gothic chimney, I watched unconsciously the bickering of the blaze which I had fostered. 'And this,' said I aloud, 'is the progress and the issue of human wishes! Nursed by the merest trifles, they are first kindled by fancy, nay, are fed upon the vapour of hope till they consume the substance which they inflame; and man, and his hopes, passions, and desires, sink into a worthless heap of embers and ashes!''

from Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott (Chapter XXXVIII)

Commonplace Book

'....there was revealed to her, within her soul, a bottomless depth, a mad, wild, reckless fervour of passion, which bid fair to blast all the life that lay before her, which had begun its blasting work already, withering up all her little innocent joys with the furnace-breath of its fiery flame, taking the sap out of her girl's pleasures, and making them like the dry twigs on a tree whose principle of life is extinct. That muddy, polluted flood of earthly love (for is not all earthly love, even that of the purest woman, polluted with the taint of mortality?) had, with its bitter waters, swallowed up and choked the spring of higher, better love, which might have refreshed and watered her soul for the garden of God. Oh, idiot! - to make so losing a bargain with this dull, passing world.'

from Not Wisely, But Too Well by Rhoda Broughton (Chapter IV)

Commonplace Book

'...Those who believed in the uncomfortable Pythagorean theory of the transmigration of souls were much impressed with the idea that the spirit of the Reverend Piggott had but recently evacuated the body of a well-fattened south-down. Even those who were sceptical as to this notion could not fail to remark that in the sound of Mr. P.'s speech there was an undeniable kinship to a baa....'

from Not Wisely, But Too Well by Rhoda Broughton (Chapter III)

When William Came by Saki (1913)

This is a slightly more solid-feeling novel than its predecessor, The Unbearable Bassington. Both are very entertaining, even so. It suffers from the point of view of popular consciousness by the fact that it covers the droop between two momentous happenings, as evidenced by the sub-title: A Story of London Under the Hohenzollerns. Saki's fascinating prediction that Britain would undergo a lightning-fast attack from Germany and capitulate within a month came the year before the outbreak of war. The aggressor was spot-on, the duration could not have been less so, and thankfully the result. But that happens 'off-screen' while our hunting, exploring hero, Murrey Yeovil, is laid up in Siberia getting over a fever. Saki's trademark wit is everywhere in this - a lover of his more famous short stories will not be disappointed. The story covers Yeovil's uncomfortableness with the new rule he finds on his return, his wife's attempts to fit in with its new society, and various finely funny attempts by some of those who remain to make a splash given the new opportunities. It ends with the first signs of the younger generation not taking this lying down, a generation in whom Saki clearly believed, and with whose real counterpart he was to be wiped away in the five years following.........

The Burning Bush by Romain Rolland (1911)

This is one of the more intense novels in the Jean Christophe sequence, published as John Christopher in Gilbert Cannan's translation. It covers the period I think, though dates are never mentioned, of the 1848 French revolt, whose upset forms its backdrop (though there seems something later about the milieu). Christopher is almost blithely unaware of the growing tension, putting it down to unserious rumbling by incompetents, while Olivier tunes in and realises the danger much earlier. There are the usual fabulous set-pieces of poetic evocation scattered throughout it, and a very few of Rolland's slightly superficial philosophic musings. The sustained rolling flow of this long series of novels is a gigantic achievement even with these flaws considered. The contrast of reputation between this and, say, Proust, is phenomenally undeserved. Olivier's death knocks Christopher sideways, and then comes a strange coda. He escapes to the mountains and hides away in the house of an old colleague, Braun. Braun's seared and icy wife, Anna, and Christopher do not seem to inhabit the same spiritual space - they are blank to one another. But bit by bit it comes to pass that they fascinate one another. We see Anna from Christopher's point of view as she slowly and torturedly thaws, and then the pain starts.......

Commonplace Book

'"...But I maun hear naething about honour; we ken naething here but about credit. Honour is a homicide and a bloodspiller, that gangs about making frays in the street; but Credit is a decent honest man, that sits at hame and makes the pat play."'

from Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott (Chapter XXVI)

The Booker Longlist for 1910 - Second Instalment

Just a note firming out this process - the main aim is no less than to improve our cultural values by historical novel reading!

Reading that line above over makes me laugh, and yet, it's completely true. Strange thing, the modern journalistic scoff immediately comes to mind, appears so tenable, and yet isn't.

I don't think there's any question that what you read cultures your mind. It's the problem I have with the librarian-squeak when challenged about the low stuff they're seen as purveying: "At least they're reading!" At least they're reading........what, exactly?

I would challenge that on two levels. Nothing could teach me more clearly for one thing that fiction that is called shamefully popular in one era can be appreciated at its true worth in a succeeding one. The epitome of the 20s, Michael Arlen was pounded in his time - the reader of These Charming People these days is struck by the power of his charm and erudition and, in this collection particularly, the originality of his voice. Similarly, the late Victorians Mary E Braddon and Rhoda Broughton were pilloried - reading their works is a revelation today.

To say nothing of that favourite of all whipping-posts, Mary Webb, a truly fascinating successor to Hardy and Emily Bronte. She became the butt of a thousand jokes after her early death in 1927, energised mainly by two things. One was popularity - Stanley Baldwin had praised her to the skies and virtually single-handedly guaranteed her phenomenal sales through the 30s. The other was of course Cold Comfort Farm, whose parallel success guaranteed the satire's author, Stella Gibbons, her moment in the limelight. Cold Comfort Farm no doubt deserves its continuing fame. But I could have wished for more readers now for The Golden Arrow, Gone to Earth and The House in Dormer Forest, the three I've read by Mary Webb, to say nothing of some of the most delicate nature essays ever written in her seminal The Spring of Joy. To be satirised in this way should be a weird kind of compliment, and I hope Stella Gibbons thought of it at least a little that way. It's time now, 80 years on, for us to understand that and read both Gibbons and her targets in full measure. The other major targets were, I think, TF Powys and Sheila Kaye-Smith, though I'm sure there are other examples. Powys' work is a tower of achievement in the field of goat-eyed Christian-Pagan fable - just read Brynmill Press' Mock's Curse to taste a talent that is utterly original and largely ignored - exactly what this exercise is about. Most modern writing barely exists on the same plane. I'd love to see what a creative writing course might make of him! The reactions would be priceless. Not that Powys was ever popular, to get back to the original point.

So I would say that a lot of the fiction that public libraries are purveying may well be of a great deal more worth than is credited. The other level on which to challenge that statement is the mind-enculturation one. Given the severely contestable statement that at least a goodly part of library borrowings are of trash, shouldn't that matter? Let's get down to it, I say. What is trash, in a literary context? A little contrarily, I would say that there's a lot of self-indulgence out there in so-called literary authors. Seeing crud for crud, I would call that, to its measure, trash. The straightforwardness of an unabashed storyteller like Joyce Carol Oates (who has a load of other faults, don't get me wrong) in something like We Were the Mulvaneys far excels the fatuous dullness of a novel like The Way of the Women by Marlene Van Niekirk (which has its good elements, I feel bound to point out). Niekirk's largely grim self-involvement and needless obfuscation is bad quality, barely put. But these are literary authors, aren't they? The trash that public library-detractors talk about is formula-fiction, I think, when brass tacks are finally got down to. I can't say that I have a problem with how a novel is made, as long as it's made well. I think one needs to look a little deeper than that. Can't help feeling that whether a writer is fascinating or not will depend on their natural talent, if that's not too Luddite a phrase. If a Mills and Boon novelist has the goods, they'll go the distance. What I'm after is a clearer recognition of the nature of the goods.

I think it is worthwhile to think about this using an analogy. Think of the world as an open landscape. It's cooling, and as night-time comes bonfires are lit all over. The authors we have available to us are placed in the prized 'storyteller's place', one next to each fire. We all wander, and as we find something which captures us, stay to listen and keep warm. Which authors have the capacity to pull the audience? (To return again to the original point: from whom is our mind culture being constructed?) I think Marlene Van Niekirk's fire would be virtually deserted, and I think Joyce Carol Oates' audience would be legion, at her best. I recognise that this will be seen as over-reductionist, that this doesn't take account of the reality of the novel as more, quite literally, than a campfire yarn. But I'm saying that I think some 'reduction', actually discernment, is necessary. That returning to the nuts and bolts is not a conservative flatulence, it's a grounding measure. We need to rediscover the essence; if you like, we need to regain our appreciation of the forever in culture. At the moment, we are floundering around in superstructural philosophizing.

So, to sum up, I think a new era should be announced - that the time has come for a rediscovery of the essential in fiction. I think that our appreciation should be fed with a steady stream of material from the past, to help us realise exactly what human beings are capable of in literary terms - these authors remind us that our multifarious genre-addicted over-marketed modern literature is quite a limited place, oddly. All that 'noise' - nothing could be more suspicious.......

Commonplace Book

'"The one that took my fancy most was the one in the Standard," said Yeovil, picking up that paper from a table by his side and searching its columns for the notice in question. "'The wolves which appeared earlier in the evening's entertainment are, the programme assures us, trained entirely by kindness. It would have been a further kindness, at any rate to the audience, if some of the training, which the wolves doubtless do not appreciate at its proper value, had been expended on Miss Mustelford's efforts at stage dancing(...)As far as the educational aspect of her performance is concerned we must admit that the life of the fern remains to us a private life still. Miss Mustelford has abandoned her own private life in an unavailing attempt to draw the fern into the gaze of publicity. And so it was with her other suggestions. They suggested many things, but nothing that was announced on the programme....'""'

from When William Came by Saki (Chapter X)

Commonplace Book

'"Are there many Socialists over there, in Germany I mean?" asked Ronnie, who was rather out of his depth where politics were concerned.
"Ueberall," said the Grafin with emphasis; "everywhere, I don't know what it comes from; better education and worse digestions I suppose. I am sure digestion has a good deal to do with it. In my husband's family for example, his generation had excellent digestions, and there wasn't a case of Socialism or suicide among them; the younger generation have no digestions worth speaking of, and there have been two suicides and three Socialists within the last six years....."'

from When William Came by Saki (Chapter IX)

Commonplace Book

'As Yeovil, from the back of his gallery, watched Gorla running and ricochetting about the stage, looking rather like a wagtail in energetic pursuit of invisible gnats and midges, he wondered how many of the middle-aged women who were eagerly applauding her would have taken the least notice of similar gymnastics on the part of their offspring in nursery or garden, beyond perhaps asking them not to make so much noise.'

from When William Came by Saki (Chapter IX)

The Booker Longlist for 1910 - First Instalment

This is inspired by a continuing wish to help my fellow human beings to an appreciation of the wider spaces of literature. I'm imagining a yearly prize given out by the Man group, current sponsors of the Booker Prize, to the best novel of 100 years ago. (Just think Man group, the authors are all dead, no prize money necessary!) A deliberate effort to get people reading these shots from another world, as it now seems, though it's supposed just to be an antecedent of this one.

My main aim, of course, being the nasty, rigid classicist that I am (ha ha) is to help readers of modern literature to an idea of what erudition is all about. Back then, they did it the hard and good way; now, we sludge around in physicalist grammatically-challenged navel-staring, goes the standard bleat. But that bleat at least partly has it right. I don't think literature is lost, but I do think that creative-writing-class-ism has taken over pretty appallingly. I think a lot of those who aspire to novel-writing today would be astounded by the minds of those who wrote a century ago:

'What do you mean you didn't follow the steps laid out in a self-help book?'

'How on earth did you think of that?'

'That's not the way to do it - it says so here.'

would no doubt be familiar refrains passing up and down the corridors of modern excellence.

Of course it's not as bad as all that. I desperately hope.

So, I envision the first award going to the best novel of its year, commercially successful or otherwise, in the opinion of the judges. (Who might they be? is another question.) Remember that the list needs to contain only novels for adults from the Empire (as it then was). So, no short stories, no children's books, no non-fiction and so on......

On those grounds, 1910 was a relatively quiet year. No Conrad, no Kipling, no Galsworthy, no James, no Hardy. Meredith had died the year before and his last unfinished novel, Celt and Saxon, was published this year, but I'm fairly sure unfinished shouldn't be allowed. But there were a few still appreciated novelists on the hustings.

The old guard of that time, meaning those whose main thrust of career is 19th century rather than 20th, is represented by five women and four men. Sensation novelist Mary E Braddon's Beyond These Voices came out now, as did an apparently fine later instalment in the fading career of Rhoda Broughton, The Devil and the Deep Sea. The oft-despised Marie Corelli produced an extraordinary fictional attack on the automobile entitled The Devil's Motor which no doubt fed into, and from, conservative hell-in-a-handcart prophecy. The sprightly EL Voynich's sequel to her renowned 'The Gadfly' came out at this time, entitled An Interrupted Friendship. And Mary Augusta Ward, commonly known as Mrs Humphry Ward, brought out another of her highly coloured full-weave tapestries, Canadian Born.

The old guard men include writers whose reputations have slipped a little, and a couple who still command an audience. SR Crockett, most famous for The Stickit Minister, published Dew of their Youth, H Rider Haggard graced us with two typical pieces Morning Star and Queen Sheba's Ring, Anthony Hope revealed Second String, and "Q", otherwise known as Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, brought out Lady Good for Nothing.

Two of the newer guard whose names still strongly echo are HG Wells and Arnold Bennett. Wells' The History of Mr Polly and Bennett's Helen with the High Hand and Clayhanger (the first novel of the trilogy) were out this year.

Here is the first part of the complete list. It is gleaned from my bibliographic sources and there are more to check. I have the Annals of Australian Literature edited by Grahame Johnstone and published by Oxford University Press in 1970 whose contents for this year I have included. The main part of this list has been retrieved from The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, volumes three and four, edited respectively by George Watson and IR Willison, and published in 1969 and 1972:

ADAMS, Arthur H. Galahad Jones
ANONYMOUS (later revealed to be Viola Meynell). Martha Vine
BAILEY, HC. Storm and Treasure
BENNETT, Arnold. Clayhanger
BENNETT, Arnold. Helen with the High Hand
BOWEN, Marjorie. I Will Maintain
BRADDON, Mary E. Beyond These Voices
BROUGHTON, Rhoda. The Devil and the Deep Sea
BUCHAN, John. Prester John
CANNAN, Gilbert. Devious Ways
CORELLI, Marie. The Devil's Motor
CROCKETT, SR. Dew of their Youth
DEEPING, Warwick. The Lame Englishman
DEEPING, Warwick. The Rust of Rome
FORSTER, EM. Howards End
FOWLER, Ellen Thorneycroft. The Wisdom of Folly
GLYN, Elinor. His Hour
HAGGARD, H Rider. Morning Star
HAGGARD, H Rider. Queen Sheba's Ring
HEWLETT, Maurice. Rest Harrow
HOPE, Anthony. Second String
HUEFFER, Ford Madox. A Call
HUEFFER, Ford Madox. The Portrait
HUNT, Violet. The Wife of Altamont
KAYE-SMITH, Sheila. Spell Land
LOCKE, William J. Simon the Jester
LOWNDES, Marie Belloc. When No Man Pursueth
MASON, AEW. At the Villa Rose
MAXWELL, WB. The Rest Cure
MONTAGUE, CE. A Hind Let Loose
MORGAN, William de. An Affair of Dishonour
NORRIS, WE. Not Guilty
ONIONS, Oliver. The Exception
OXENHAM, John. Lauristons
OXENHAM, John. A Maid of the Silver Sea
PAIN, Barry. The Exiles of Faloo
PHILLPOTTS, Eden. The Thief of Virtue
PRAED, Rosa. Opal Fire
"Q". Lady Good for Nothing
REYNOLDS, Stephen. The Holy Mountain
RICHARDSON, Henry Handel. The Getting of Wisdom
RIDGE, W. Pett. Nine to Six-Thirty
SANDES, John. Love and the Aeroplane
SIDGWICK, Ethel. Promise
SINCLAIR, May. The Creators
SNAITH, JC. Fortune
SNAITH, JC. Mrs Fitz
SWINNERTON, Frank. The Young Idea
VACHELL, Horace Annesley. The Other Side
VOYNICH, EL. An Interrupted Friendship
WALLACE, Edgar. The Nine Bears
WALPOLE, Hugh. Maradick at Forty
WARD, Mrs Humphry. Canadian Born
WODEHOUSE, PG. A Gentleman of Leisure
WODEHOUSE, PG. Psmith in the City
YOUNG, EH. A Corn of Wheat

Of course, there are other names to conjure with here. Younger guns, the most obvious being John Buchan's notable Prester John, two from Ford Madox Ford (then still known as Hueffer), EM Forster and his seminal Howards End, May Sinclair's The Creators, PG Wodehouse's hilarious A Gentleman of Leisure and Psmith in the City and the debut work of the underrated EH Young, A Corn of Wheat. There's a good deal of quite exotic fiction from Maurice Hewlett (the most highly sculpted writer I can imagine from that time), JC Snaith (another exquisite stylist), Horace Annesley Vachell, William de Morgan (the notable potter and tile-maker turned rich-toned storyteller) and a young CE Montague prior to his First World War glory days in subject matter.

And in between them, some incredibly interesting corners of popular literature and also some forgotten literary territory. A treasure trove for the reader, and at long last a non-academic raison d'etre for the Print On Demand publishers - a good majority of these books are available from them. I don't care for their production standards, but I'll take them anytime over unavailability!

(My bibliographic sources cover Britain and Australia, but if anyone out there feels that a prominent Canadian or South African or other Empire novel of this year should be included, please provide the details. I still have research to do in The Oxford Companion to Edwardian Fiction, so a subsequent instalment of this will include a supplemental list from there.)

Pop Music - The Human League Part II

The follow-up to my Ultraleague compilation I think I'll call Superleague. It has a slightly different flavour - these songs begin to delve into the more unusual faces the Human League have shown us over the years, whilst maintaining the sock-it-to-you punch of their absolute best.

1995's Octopus album features heavily. It's first and third singles (Tell Me When and Filling Up With Heaven) are on Ultraleague but many of the astonishing album tracks are on this one. The middle single, One Man in My Heart, is a strange case. It's quite a strong simple song, but hampered I think by an underdone production. It really comes into its own on one of the CD singles in the TOEC Nasty Sue Mix - every now and then the League can be criticised in this way - a wish for too much simplicity and not quite enough growl. 'Let that dark bass, or richer riff, curl its way into the mix Phil, Jo and Sue,' one feels like entreating, 'and you'll have another Dare! on your hands.'

Then again, there are some really fun examples of that simplicity winning out. The Orbisonesque Let's Get Together Again from 1990's Romantic? is a classic case. (Apparently it's a Glitter Band cover - never heard the original.) Pretty roundly reviled as far as I can see, but I can't help liking it. (If only their grotesque adventure into America, 1986's Crash, had sounded like this!) It sounds like it ought to have come from a late 80s teen film soundtrack, but as far as I can tell it never appeared on one. I like Phil as Roy - and it's a good enough song that its simple elements are enough to fill its own odd airwave completely.

Two others of these songs are unfairly extensively despised. The buzzy instrumental from Octopus called John Cleese; Is He Funny? is a fine little humming wire of a track, and the second single from the almost forgotten Romantic? called Soundtrack to a Generation is one of those strange ones that first strike you as quite dismissable and silly. Then its peculiar powers start to drag chemicals into your brainstream that no other song can, and before you know it you're addicted. Another song that comes into its ultimate state in the producer William Orbit's lovely long mix from the CD single: 'o,o,o,o,o,o,o,oh, WOW!' over a rumbling Bass-o-Matic bassline.

This compilation also sees the first emergence of a song from the first album, Reproduction, from 1979. The glorious Morale...You've Lost That Loving Feeling is another hidden gem of an excursion into classic cover territory. This set also includes a richly tonal rolling elegy from Romantic? called Rebound - apparently a firm favourite of Vic Reeves'. Nice to know he gets it, and glad to join him....

There are, of course, many other eligible League tracks and this compiling could go on and on. But I think these two are more than a sufficient statement of absolute excellence in the pop medium. In our modern Cowellised musical slipstream, The Human League at their best are a vital message from the old school.....and such a welcome one.

SUPERLEAGUE

1. Cruel Young Lover
2. Fascination
3. Housefull of Nothing
4. I'm Coming Back
5. John Cleese; Is He Funny?
6. Let's Get Together Again
7. Marianne
8. Morale...You've Lost That Loving Feeling
9. Never Again
10. Rebound
11. Reflections
12. Seconds
13. Soundtrack to a Generation
14. These are the Days
15. WXJL Tonight

Here's hoping the new recording sessions for Wall of Sound will produce some fantastic results, and form a typically storming reminder of what pop's all about........

Commonplace Book

'...No one could justly say that the Shalems were either oppressively vulgar or insufferably bumptious; probably the chief reason for their lack of popularity was their intense and obvious desire to be popular. They kept open house in such an insistently open manner that they created a social draught...'

from When William Came by Saki (Chapter VIII)

Commonplace Book

'...Brave men fight for a forlorn hope, but the bravest do not fight for an issue they know to be hopeless.'

from When William Came by Saki (Chapter VI)

Commonplace Book

'...She cultivated a jovial, almost joyous manner, with a top-dressing of hearty good will and good nature which disarmed strangers and recent acquaintances; on getting to know her better they hastily re-armed themselves. Some one had once aptly described her as a hedgehog with the protective mimicry of a puffball...'

from When William Came by Saki (Chapter V)

Commonplace Book

'...It was one of the bonds of union and good-fellowship between her husband and herself that each understood and sympathized with each other's tastes without in the least wanting to share them; they went their own ways and were pleased and comrade-like when the ways happened to run together for a span, without self-reproach or heart-searching when the ways diverged. Moreover, they had separate and adequate banking accounts, which constitute, if not the keys of the matrimonial Heaven, at least the oil that lubricates them.'

from When William Came by Saki (Chapter IV)

Commonplace Book

'....he had looked critically at life from too many angles not to know that though clothes cannot make a man they can certainly damn him.'

from When William Came by Saki (Chapter I)

Commonplace Book

'"Love is one of the few things in which the make-believe is superior to the genuine,' said Ronnie, "it lasts longer, and you get more fun out of it, and it's easier to replace when you've done with it."

from When William Came by Saki (Chapter I)

Commonplace Book

'"What is young Storre's profession?" some one had once asked concerning him.

"He has a great many friends who have independent incomes," had been the answer.'

from When William Came by Saki (Chapter I)

Commonplace Book

'...She desired to escape from the doom of being a non-entity, but the escape would have to be effected in her own way and in her own time; to be governed by ambition was only a shade or two better than being governed by convention.'

from When William Came by Saki (Chapter I)