Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller (2018)

If I didn't have the evidence before me in the preliminary pages, I would have said that this was a first novel. The writer clearly has a strong capability with wordsmithing in its technical aspect, at least in one respect. He is able to mould phrasing, particularly that which is descriptive of emotion, often into elegant and succinctly poetic shapes. But what gives it the feel of a first novel is everything else. He is obviously somewhat uncomfortable working with historical materials. His work in the area of dialogue is quite stilted and repetitively flat. Just two examples. OK, so where to start. Perhaps a likening which will lend the flavour of it as a whole? Two images occurred to me while reading: one of that slightly dampened and functional impression that one gets after reading what is identifiable as 'popular' fiction: the characters essay through their lives with the sense that the engineering, the construction which surrounds them, acts like blinkers do to a horse. They're obediently following the path made for them - they are functions, ultimately. I wonder what Miller makes of authors, whom he must presumably have come across, whose bright belief in the action carries all with it; the engineering of whose pieces is swamped in a flood of their imaginative quicksilver, its presence deep down somewhere, invisible to the lit imagination of the reader. Conversely, Miller's manipulations are so near the surface as to be indistinguishable from being fully in view. So this novel drags its feet, the reader hampered by the obviousness of the contrivances. The second image really I think says the same thing,  but perhaps it will illustrate it better. It's as though a novel were a performance in a theatre. In the reading of any good novel, we're concentrated on the stage because the strength of the author's voice makes it so. Their belief carries us. We become far less aware of the everyday world around us, and occupy the golden space of fascination. With this novel, we have been invited to partake in the expected way, turn up, occupy our seat, and then, on the stage, a lot less grabs us. Instead, we're distracted by how the scenery lowers and lifts, the back and forward in the wings of how the thing is done, the prop-room under the stage busy with concocting the action. All of which is a long way round of saying that that essential thing, the suspension of disbelief in the reader, accessed via the assertive belief of the writer, is distinctly absent in this case. In an eighth novel, that is worrying. OK, so - mentioned earlier was the fact that he also seems to be uncomfortable with historical detail. Consistently here one gets the unmistakable feeling of "display hands", a bit like "jazz hands"! Hands turning from palms down to palms up in a long curl of reveal. Curl, here is this historical item discussed. Curl, we'll include one of these to lend verisimilitude. Curl, I'll have this character use this archaic word to remind you of when this is set. Curl, I'll just explain this attitude so as to illustrate the difference between then and now. All of these things do need doing, but of course they need doing invisibly, as 'natural' consequences of the forward thrust of the piece. The corollary of this is anti-historical manipulation; the above historical insertions are all the more 'necessary' because there is a strong feeling of the modern in how these characters relate to one another and think. Grim attempt at 'relatability'? It's a pervasive foolishness at the moment, so disquietingly possible.   I also mentioned the dialogue earlier - not a lot else to say than that it's occasionally flat. "No?" "No." "Really?" "Yes." is illustrative of a few odd conversations in our lives, but not great as a template for a lot of exchanges. I think the intention may have been the 'incantatory' - and it might theoretically have had that effect if the casing for it had been more lustrous and intriguing, but this novel misses that by a way. Worth mentioning are a few very strange factual assertions: that anywhere in Somerset could be anything like a hundred miles from the sea is deeply odd; that the Mersey was ever called the Mercy I can't find a reference for, but am willing to be gainsaid; the consistent, supposedly poetic, reference to sea-mist at one juncture as 'smoke' is very......loose; and calling a taxman instead a 'tacksman' is again not something I've come across, but it's possible, I guess. Every now and then the still intact dignity of this novel is surprised by a little steam-spike of camp: two of the military men in a hot room in Spain silently following a fly around the room with their eyes at a tense moment is......well, funny. Counter to these criticisms: there is a sequence in the pp 170s where this came alive for a short moment, where the main character has been left on a Hebridean island under the influence of some drops of opium - it really caught me up (hopefully not the result of a passing mood). The conclusion: perhaps Miller needs setting free. He needs to throw off the cloak of what must be his lack of confidence when it comes to the historical, and, thus disrobed, plunge into the contemporary with the energy he has saved. Perhaps there's plenty of this in the seven novels prior to this one. If so, this one may just be an aberration, and I wish him well for a return to home territory.

Men Dislike Women by Michael Arlen (1931)

I go on fairly consistently about the under-reading of Arlen, and shall do so again here. Of course, he is an exemplar of the slick, dramatic, deco-perspectived, dashing twenties, as they are conceived in the popular imagination - he is Britain's Fitzgerald...in a way. The racing Deusenberg, the Brooks-bobbed fatal heroine with eyes that one sinks into, the top-hatted gentleman in tow, wryly self-deprecating and of impeccable coolness - could he be a cad? It's all lovely - of course it is. But these leading players are also seamed through with nerves, or a deadness because of a lost love, or a deluded vision of themselves as martyred to.....whatever. That's the first layer of ensubtlement - I'll take the blame for the invented word. Then under this again, we have philosophical drawing out, and not too hampered by the stylishness, either. Arlen is most definitely not silly. And then there are set pieces of psychology attached to the philosophy, where he manages to very concisely draw us into a state of mind, all its weighings and oppositions adding to a revelation which is familiar enough to be recognizable, and yet original enough of exposition to be a concentrated moment of joy. Here he emerges into the thirties with his first novel set anywhere other than Britain. It's the New York of the period just after the financial shock of 1929. His wish to be up-to-date is very evident: a lot of the cultural references are to things of the prior couple of years, like the Cole Porter song What is This Thing Called Love?, the just built skyscaper called the New York Central Building (now the Helmsley), the mention of the young Hemingway as the prophet of the in-crowd, and Barrymore, Chaplin and Keaton as the leading lights of film. The other change here comes with the territory. He utilizes the alteration of scene not only to discuss with some derogation American society and the American character, but also to investigate the reach of crime in NYC. The father and suitor of his wealthy American lead are crims, but in the untouchable way of the times. They're slick, never mention their nefarious activities, are 'prominent businessmen'. They have corrupt police in tow, and speak often in code, or with considerable camouflage. They too have psychological tics, little maimednesses which underscore their reactions. I hope it is needless to say that all these wounds of the mind have an origin only a decade or so back - perhaps emblematically, perhaps more directly. The action here is set off by the arrival on the Berengaria of a young Anglophile Frenchman, Andre Saint-Cloud, along with a Paris-based English friend with whom he has journeyed, Sheila Hepburn. Sheila has had many lovers, and has a reputation in Europe. She is the kind of woman most men fall for pretty well immediately, so has had lots of opportunities. The story eventually revolves around Sheila falling for one of the wealthy businessmen in a way she hasn't before, and he for her. Andre is early enmeshed with a young Long Island heiress (of the aforesaid less than squeaky prominence), Marilyn Fox, who is hopelessly in love with Sheila's conquest. It all becomes desperately tangled, not only of direct emotions, but of self-delusions, undercurrent urges, workarounds of delicate sensibilities. In amongst all this are the egos of the criminal types, playing by sideways allusion, under the surface. And then through it all also are pedestalled ideals, destroyed illusions - the territory of dreams and their danger. The fact that Arlen can marshal all this into a muster which is stripped, elegant and poetic is a tribute to the man. It will be interesting to see what he does in his next steps, as I believe he begins the move away from this home territory, and into crime more pointedly, and to the dystopian. Should be thought-provoking.

Commonplace Book

'I said: "Well, it's scarcely my place to teach a laundryman anything, but how about this? Chastity isn't everything, MacRae. And you've got confounded impudence to insist on it. Galahads like you put such a high value on your respect for women that a poor mortal woman has to be a liar to win you. What business is it of yours that Sheila has had lovers? Do you think an ordinary normal woman of thirty-five is going to live in a stained-glass window because she's one day going to meet a man mean enough to want 'all' of her? You are so selfish, MacRae, that you make me sick."'

from Men Dislike Women by Michael Arlen (Chapter XIX)

The Bible in Spain by George Borrow (1842)

I typified Borrow on summing up his first book as a 'Baby Byron'. He seemed somehow to have the quality of braggadocio, and continent-traversing vigour, which lent that mood. If anything, that feeling has intensified with this book. But the issue of where his heart is has now to take up some of the story. Where Byron was a delighted debunker of convention and flab, Borrow was not. Or rather, Borrow expends his Byronic energy on chasing down evil Papism and 'superstition', while he undertakes the main task recorded here - spreading the good word via selling copies of a Spanish translation of the New Testament. The Catholic system regarded the Bible as a priestly book, which needed the interpretation of the clergy to have its 'true' intentions made clear. Thus the laity were not allowed access, and copies of it were banned. The idea of making a translation into their own language, in order to popularise it even further, was tantamount to sacrilege. To Borrow's 'enlightened' Protestantism, of course, this was not to be countenanced, and his warrior missionary-spirit was thoroughly engaged. He entered Spain in 1837 under the auspices of the Bible Society with an edition, the aim to spread it far and wide. The country he encountered was in a parlous state, riven with vying factions according to whom one supported as monarch, and with national governments and local regimes coming and going with extraordinary regularity. The atmosphere of civil war obtained. So, dangerous political quagmire, religious maelstrom invited - what could go wrong? And much does; the main part of this book is the story of shipments of New Testaments being quarantined through the actions of clergy on petty officials, traipsing through all sorts of country with retainers ranging from the saintly to the satanic, discussion of spiritual and temporal architecture, of nationality through language and custom. But there's no way of avoiding the tone of the great majority of Borrow's extemporizing (it often has that quality): it's jingoistic, prejudiced, and nakedly self-inflating. Races or regionalities are 'known' to have certain negative qualities, both physical and spiritual; these are reflected in their dirty homes, dull minds, evil propensities; the English, exemplified in their soldiers, are somehow all apple-cheeked, beautiful young bucks who couldn't be more admirable, et cetera ad infinitum. It's stupefyingly grim, and belies his superior tone all too readily. And it was 'par for the course' at the time, undoubtedly - it's not special to Borrow. This drabness is counterbalanced to a degree by a modicum of colour in relating adventures battling banditti, rangy discussions with vociferous hotel-keepers, exotic locales illustrated, and some interesting background information on language and customs tucked amongst all the bigotry. The strange mixture in him of warrior evangelist and attenuated mentality is quite a bilious concoction. That this is housed in an unvarnished braggart pretty well does it in.