Marching with April by Hugo Charteris (1956)

Charteris' second novel feels much less rooted in his own life than the first, but who knows whether or not this is true. It occupies a strange matrix-point - triangulated between Evelyn Waugh, Compton Mackenzie and Hortense Calisher. It's set in Scotland, at an estate just inherited by Lionel Spote, the main character. He is typical Charteris (I say cheekily on the basis of two novels and a cursory glance at his others), with Jungian preoccupations, deeply conflicted self, put-uponness and bewilderedness, and a sour tone. This part is autobiographical I think - Lionel has too much in common with John Grant, the lead in his first novel, for this not to be the case. This one also takes us into dour territory, but unlike the first, it isn't especially strangulated and melancholy. Lionel is stymied in many ways, but this is drawn out with humour and absurdity. A pushy local dignitary wants to provide some employment in tough times by building an enormous machine which can, through technologically revolutionary means, make rope out of bracken, which the surrounding estates have in plenty. What follows is a comedy of shifting intentions, political vying, and bracing force of personality. The relish with which this is portrayed is the Mackenzie trig-point (along, of course, with its Scots setting). The Waugh influence is in the fine-point revelation of the upper class, climbing right through the mindset and giving it in superbly able detail. This mixture is then fed through Charteris' spare, unredundant, densely allusive prose, which is the Calisher likening. This is fascinating, and very occasionally mystifying, but always alive. Also included, as there was in the last one, is an at-odds love, in this instance with the bemused daughter of one of Lionel's nearest neighbours, the April of the title, with whose property his own 'marches' (borders). This element seems the least developed - I'll be intrigued to see whether he covers love more centrally again in future.