Man's Mortality by Michael Arlen (1933)

 This is one of those novels which I feel would have a better reputation if it had been by someone else, or had come out near the beginning of the author's career. Coming as it does after a long string of hugely successful, elegant, somewhat philosophical, dashing novels of high life, as different to them as it is in a good number of ways - well, the die had already been cast, and it is shrouded and eclipsed to some degree. What Arlen stood for had been determined, and this didn't quite fit. Though I have seen some of the contemporaneous reviews - people were impressed at the time, and saw what a revolution it was. But the fact of how good it is couldn't quite make it out to the light in a more permanent sense. This story of the world fifty years hence (it is set mainly in 1987) is one in which Arlen clearly wants to say that he has something to say beyond his usual fare, and, at this more matured point in his career, the means to say it. He posits a rearrangement of world power into an international stasis via the discovery of certain technical innovations in flight. There is now a company, International Aircraft and Airways, or IA&A, at the centre of the web of global interconnection, and nationalist interests are very much subdued across the world. But there are still a few outliers, Italy and China being the most powerful. Also, the Directors of IA&A, a small but broadly multi-national group of supposedly well-meaning public benefactors, have begun to assume levels of control and attitudes to power which are showing signs of corruption, although this fact is well hidden, all seeming serene outwardly. Into this mix, Arlen stirs an influential father and son whose new invention of even further technical prowess in flight threatens, in the hands of the son, who is aware of the corruption, to become very awkward indeed. Young David Knox has developed machines which can utterly defeat those of IA&A, and he has right on his side, aware as he is of growing chicanery among the bigwigs of the company. What Arlen manages to do, though, amongst these futuristic thriller plotlines, is weave in confidently powerful discussion of the manoeuvrings and sleights of hand as egos battle one another, as beliefs come into high contrast, and as personalities respond to pressure, both raising and lowering, all while very little is out in the open, and secret strategizing is going on at a hectic rate, guessing others' capacities (or lack of them), conniving to be the one who comes out on top. The characters are in a good way recognizable as Arlenian - they are stylish people of the 'thirties, with a sophisticatedly fashionable way of speaking, but he has managed to subdue their high vogueishness much more to the plot. To this amalgam he adds a level of drawing out, a pulling through of threads of personal and political philosophy which are mature and telling. And above and beyond that, even, there are touches which betray a wish for spiritual deep extension, whereby at certain points of stress, what is happening broaches the potentially supernatural and puzzling, in an oddly sinister register. The culmination illustrates how Arlen was feeling about the future, with an inevitable slide to break-up of hegemony, revivified nationalism, and finally war. So this novel is prescient in some ways, a flight of fancy in others, and a fascinating example of a trapped author using watershed-of-career levels of energy to showcase skill.

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)

Commonplace Book

'"I've read," I said recklessly, "that the future of American civilization is in the hands of the mothers. Do you think that is true?"

He said: "They are the best influence we have."

I could see that he believed it and that it made him happy to believe it. It consoled him and it gratified him and it exalted him and it humbled him to believe it. He felt better for believing it. Well, good luck to him. To me it seemed as fat-headed a generalisation as saying that the future of American civilization depended on the growth of banana-eating. But maybe it does. One needs to be a little light in the head to feel at home in this world. So maybe it is the light-headed generalisations that are the truest ones.'

from Men Dislike Women by Michael Arlen (Chapter VIII)

Commonplace Book

'...The fact that I could knock spots off most of her friends at golf and tennis surprised, delighted and encouraged Isabella. She considered this not as a sign of a misspent youth but as a Good Sign. This Good Sign illusion is peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon peoples. If a Frenchman is a world's champion at tennis, as even Frenchmen sometimes are, his compatriots are delighted but are not therefore convinced that he wears wings beneath his tennis shirt. In England and America it is taken for granted that a man whose eye for a ball commands respect must necessarily have more Good in him than the other fellow. Why? But this illusion persists in face of the fact that there is a great deal more humbug, conceit, caddishness and corruption among the well-known sportsmen of the world than among the politicians, whom it is convenient and human to blame for everything.'

from Men Dislike Women by Michael Arlen (Chapter V)

Babes in the Wood by Michael Arlen (1929)

This consists of five novellas, and sits well within the usual Arlen remit. They show all the hallmarks: sardonic wit, nervous positivity of an urbane kind, the romance of the twenties, tragic staginess, all blended together with a special skill in piquant detail which makes for enjoyable reading. Confessions of a Naturalized Englishman takes the author as character into a romance with the bored, vivacious wife of a blood. She does not fix readily on anyone, rather appealing to their brightest parts in a superior way and then moving on. The author makes a date, almost against his own good judgment, to see her at the Carlton Grill and is stood up. When she turns up later at his measly Chelsea flat the angel of unhappiness has lighted on his shoulders, and she gets a frosty welcome. They end up as friends. A Girl with a Future has three men, a chivalrous young Frenchman, a young swarthy Spanish millionaire and a stylish English drunk, competing for the charms of a beautiful young American staying in the south of France with a fearfully fierce mother. Angling, suspicion, fellow-feeling, rumours of others and confusion play their part in a round of events where all of their felicities and failures come home to roost. Portrait of a Gentleman places a severe middle-aged Englishman within the grasp of a young, wealthy and beautiful Swedish widow. He is fascinated by her despite himself and gets caught up in jealousy and self-loathing at his own weakness. But, having asked her to marry him, she hesitates. She has realised exactly who he is and what her free ways would do to him. The "Lost Generation" places an English mining engineer in the way of a free spirited bohemian socialite. He is gripped by her, even though there is plenty of evidence that she's anything but pure. At her holiday house in the south of France, surrounded by young people, he fixes on a youthful English soldier, who looks a little sad, but seems upright. Then the strike hits as he realises that this 'dangerous' woman has the soldier in her sights as a conquest. He aggravatedly interposes in the affair at her bedroom door in the middle of the night, and disillusions the soldier even more, who leaves in disgust (of a sort). She forgives the Englishman amusedly, and everything fizzles out. Nettles in Arcady has a romantic young Frenchman fall for the belittled and squashed wife of an English bully. It is the first time a woman has appealed to him as other than a conquest; there is some powerful attraction in trying to save her from her tormentor. But what he doesn't realise is that she has accommodated her place in life and no longer really wants 'saving' - she just needs a friend. Of course, his passion spoils what they might have had. The bright colours and contrasting post-war cynicism here zing with the usual style and witty flow, making for reader involvement beyond that which the material might have commanded in other hands.

Commonplace Book

'Now it is well known among novelists that novelists, like women of easy virtue, are utterly without scruple in their use of eyes. Novels in which the principal characters use their eyes to see with are exceedingly rare and are considered to be advanced, unpleasant, and on a doubtful plane of morality. The skilful novelist with a civilized regard for money can, on the other hand, do the deuce of a lot with a pair of blue eyes. Brown eyes can, of course, be used to express fidelity or pique, grey (rare) for modesty, while black eyes are in vogue for foreigners and pronounced cases of sex-repression. But a heroine's eyes should preferably be blue, since that colour lends itself to suitable treatment, inviting easy and moving comparisons with sea, sky, and fountain-pen ink...'

from Nettles in Arcady, in piece in Babes in the Wood by Michael Arlen

Commonplace Book

'...Well, he would soon have the nonsense knocked out of him. People said it was a good thing for a young fellow. "Being bullied at school did my son no harm," people said.

It was a good thing, was it, to have the nonsense knocked out of you? Was it, by God! It was a damned unholy thing. That way, the earth-bound way, lay mortal peril for the soul. Was it nonsense to dream of a better world, to live for a better world...'

from The "Lost Generation", a piece in Babes in the Wood by Michael Arlen

Commonplace Book

'Maybe Hemingway was nothing but a snob at bottom. Well, maybe. But what a daft word that is, "snob," scratching at no more than the surface of the desires that move men and women to desperate humiliations. "He's a snob, she's a snob, they're snobs" - everyone goes round squealing forever, frothing at the mouth with the fruity word, snob, snob, snob - and actually it describes nothing, it describes nobody. But it's a nice fruity word, all the same.'

from The "Lost Generation", a piece in Babes in the Wood by Michael Arlen

Commonplace Book

'Mr Hubert Byrrh was seldom seen in London. He was one of those long, grey, ageless, and sardonic-looking men with slightly projecting teeth who give you the impression that they know a thing or two - two at most - and would very much rather not know any more.'

from Confessions of a Naturalized Englishman, a piece in Babes in the Wood by Michael Arlen

Lily Christine by Michael Arlen (1928)

Another visitation of a style and created world that could be by no other writer. If that distinctiveness were the only or true criterion of greatness, Arlen would be great indeed. As it is, we tend to slide the other way; he is dismissed as froth. Whilst there is no doubt that he is frothy in a sense, he is a lot more besides. He manages to fully occupy his milieu, that of twenties London and its top-hatted, slightly fast adherents, with a sympathy and teased-out depth which is intriguing. The element that distinguishes his work is its emotional truth. No matter that his characters live within a world of 'rum fellows' and 'dashers' and 'beastly good fun', they also live within an emotional framework which is very carefully elucidated. Arlen knows their minds to a significant extent, and doesn't stint in drawing out all the realistic stretch of their questing sensibilities. Here, Lily Christine Summerest stumbles upon Rupert Harvey after her car breaks down in the country. His house is the nearest and he offers her a bed for the night - not in that way. They fast become friends; he introduces her to his wife when she gets back from being away, and Muriel Harvey likes Lily Christine too - she trusts Rupert implicitly. After all, Lily Christine is super-elegant and beautiful, an honest human being and skilled in friendship, and honourable to boot. Her husband, the famous cricketer Ivor Summerest, is a hulk of a man, a bit of a blood, delightful, but has an eye for the ladies. His playing away has been accommodated by Lily Christine because she knows that ultimately they're just 'pieces of nonsense' and Ivor will always love her best. Unfortunately this state of affairs doesn't last. Ivor falls madly for Mrs Abbey, one of London's leading actresses, whom they all respect enormously. So much so that he is willing to leave Lily Christine. As Ivor and Mrs Abbey have heard the story of Lily Christine's adventure in the country and her night stayed at Rupert's, as has everyone in their set, it's all too easy for them to decide that a lot more went on than actually did, and to cite Rupert in the Summerests' divorce proceedings. Lily Christine is horrified to think she's embroiled Rupert in these scandalous affairs, and feels sure that Ivor will tire of Mrs Abbey after all and return to her - she still loves him. She and Rupert rocket back and forth through fast London society, angling and analysing, trying to develop schemes for winning Ivor back over. At the last moment, Rupert makes a tactical error, thinking he's helping Lily Christine, and disaster strikes in the background. Suffice it to say that this book, like many of Arlen's, ends tragically. In its so strongly delineated and completely original style, it's not only brilliant entertainment, but also a vivid portrait of the spirit of the era.

Commonplace Book

'"Well, I never knew before that America had a corner in decency as well as in gold!"

"I'm not talking about decency but about that namby-pamby idealization of women they go in for - and all it has done for them has been to breed a race of confoundedly unpunctual women. No, the fellow's clubs won't turn against him. Why should they? America may be a beauty parlour for women financed by overworked millionaires whose only recreation is telling endless anecdotes - but England is still a man's country - in spite of votes for women and flappers and the Lord-knows-what..."'

from Lily Christine by Michael Arlen (Chapter XIV)

Commonplace Book

'"Unless," he said to Parwen, "we get back to some hard-and-fast standards, we shall soon be breeding a race of amusing cads."

Parwen smiled wryly. "We won't," he said, "if by 'we' you mean the England that matters at all. But this particular class happens to be very busy committing suicide. I think it's a pity, as I happen to belong to it, but I don't suppose it matters in the long run if this particular kind of 'upper' class goes or not. There will always be a governing class of some kind, and it will always go rotten as it begins to be useless."'

from Lily Christine by Michael Arlen (Chapter VI)

Commonplace Book

'And so she found herself getting engaged from the moment she "came out." Presently she found herself in a chronic state of secret engagements. She did not know what to do. She thought of various dodges for keeping herself disengaged. She almost gave up dancing, for it was while dancing that she lapsed into that acquiescent state of engagement which she could not afterward account for.'

from Lily Christine by Michael Arlen (Chapter III)

Commonplace Book

'...The charming mystery of strangers! There is in all of us a wayward lyric germ, a germ bright and active with the hopes of the God that made man in his own image. And he who does not respect this germ within him shall surely kill it and be left empty evermore, for this is the germ that bids us linger and ponder and create, that feels the stir of beauty, that respects the future, the unknown, the stranger.'

from Lily Christine by Michael Arlen (Chapter II)

Young Men in Love by Michael Arlen (1927)

Many people were eagerly awating this book on first publication. Arlen's previous novel The Green Hat had been the best selling novel of 1924, and there had been only short stories between. I think it caused disappointment in some circles, celebration in others - certainly it garnered attention as the 'long-awaited follow-up'. One of the main criticisms was his tendency to repetition of phrases for emphasis - always the case, but very markedly so here. Often I find it quite charming, and it lends the emphasis it claims. But there are some times where he does overdo it, or where the phrase is constructed less rhythmically, and the result is irritation. This is the story of a threesome of powerful men, their children, and the lovers the children take. It has the trademark Arlen charm and swing, with a Monopoly-board zeitgeist of twenties zing and brilliance. The critical response has clouded the fact that this book is, in many instances, an intelligent one. The author has a strong grip on the power of passion, the swings and roundabouts of motivation in relationships, and graces them with a sure sense of style. Something which had come out in the stories between his last novel and this one was a feeling of writer's block - they were redolent of a struggling imagination. There is very little of that here - it steams along, issuing a confident slipstream. Only in the ending is there a sense of quandary - it sums up in two pages a little too flatly. Savile, the writer lover of the daughter of one of the powerful men; Venetia, that reticent and yet ultimately open-hearted daughter; Raphael, the traumatised war-survivor son of one of the others; Ysabel, his gregarious American actress lover - these are the four whose elegance and sadness are at the centre, with the power and influence of the older generation invading and twisting their lives and loves.

Commonplace Book

'"...In fact, we are all in the same circus created by Nature to amuse itself --"

"Nature!" said Raphael passionately. "Nature is a bloody fool! It begins by arousing in us all a need to love and be loved - and in nine cases out of ten it can't satisfy it."'

from Young Men in Love by Michael Arlen (Book Four)

Commonplace Book

'Men will not really see themselves until they have conquered the unconscious habit of regarding their fellow-men as blind.'

from Young Men in Love by Michael Arlen (Book Four)

Commonplace Book

'Swiftly, steadily, she walked to the door. Mice, mice. All of them, always, mice trying to be pirates. Lechers, financiers, statesmen, great men, fathers, lovers...mice, full of craft, scampering away if you just looked at them, stinking with fear and wonder...'

from Young Men in Love by Michael Arlen (Book Three)

Commonplace Book

'...Peter had a Vauxhall car, a short sharp thing that stood out indignantly from the scrupulous traffic, like a full-stop in a page by Henry James...'

from Young Men in Love by Michael Arlen (Book Two)