Sonia Married by Stephen McKenna (1919)

 The thing I want to note about reading McKenna this time is what it feels like. He's a relatively conservative author, writes what would be considered standard narratives, and that of course is conservative and standard for, in this instance, a full century ago. But there is unmistakable uplift in reading him; a feeling of basedness, steadiness and polish which sits well, and somehow nourishes. He has dealt, in all of his work thus far, with the exigencies of the lives of well-heeled people, but in a relatively non-romantic way: the beauties in their environment are incidental; his key concerns are political and in the wrangle of their contested and nagged relationships. There is a feeling of modern guilt in liking these books. But then another instinct kicks in, and tells the reader that the deep-seated feeling of pleasure in reading them is not nothing - he's doing something very well, that is registering, and to be celebrated. This one concerns, as is evident from the title, the next part of the life of Sonia Dainton after that depicted in the wildly successful, eponymous 1918 novel. Her ornery nature means that her marriage to David O'Rane soon descends from its initial heights to mistrust, misunderstanding and potential dissolution on both their parts. She thinks he's carrying on with a secretary, he thinks she's unfair to think so because he isn't, and of course he wouldn't. She jumps off from what she sees as his disloyalty to flirtation and the possibility of an affair of her own. Their relations sour almost completely. Friends try to step in, or, not daring, watch from the sidelines as what they had seems to go down the pan. This one is told from the point of view of a background character in the previous novel, Jim Stornaway. He and one of the leads of Sonia, George Oakleigh, as well as George's bluff father Bertrand, are often depicted waiting in sitting rooms, in libraries, at clubs, and so on, discussing what David and Sonia might do next in the escapade which is this contest of wills. It gets dangerous as Sonia inveigles a bloodish type, Vincent Grayle, into an affair, leaves David, disappears in her usual elusive fashion for a good few months, and is finally discovered as a driver for a general, having found that outlet available as part of the war effort. Almost all of the main male characters apart from David are members of parliament, so there is a good amount of talk, some of it quite revealing of how the period was in its more minute aspect, of the progress of the war, the political machinations which surrounded it, and the ups and downs of how it was seen from an insider perspective. Many of these quotidian elements, which say so much, are now way out of common historical understanding of the period, and thus hugely valuable. It turns out that Sonia is pregnant, and has split up with Grayle violently and finally. She tries to remain aloof from a world she no longer quite trusts, but ends up back in their old home on Millbank as her confinement comes close, deeply conflicted about this child which will remind her of an affair she now regrets, and not at all sure she wants to make up with David in the long run. It ends with the child, a boy, born, some hope of Sonia and David making it up, but, by now, the full knowledge that their natures will probably make whatever comes next the usual bumpy ride. McKenna is not responding to the modernism inherent in his times (yet, anyway) and is limited in the scope of his characters socially, and by their attitudes, which were presumably his. But, of his small slipstream, he's a fine exponent.

Commonplace Book

 '...Others tried to avert personal attacks by discussing war and peace in the abstract, adducing uncertain historical parallels and wondering academically whether it was wise to aim at humiliating a great country too much; were we not sowing the seeds of future wars?'

from Sonia Married by Stephen McKenna (Chapter Five, part III)

Commonplace Book

 '"Efficiency is the gravest menace that the war holds over us," said O'Rane reflectively. "Whenever I've met it, it means being unkind一with Government sanction一to someone weaker than yourself; Jesus Christ would not have been tolerated by the Charity Organization Society, all the bourgeois press would have said that He was pampering the incompetent and maintaining the survival of the unfit. Efficiency frightens me."'

from Sonia Married by Stephen McKenna (Chapter Two, Part II)

Midas and Son by Stephen McKenna (1919)

The waters are settling firmly, by this point in McKenna's career, over his status as a wit. Though it began that way, with some acclaim indeed, by this point he has found what I assume to be his true metier, which is that of the conservatively elegant writer of tales of today, enmeshed in style, worldliness and politics. This novel followed in the wake of his great success of the year before, Sonia. It inhabits the same world, with some of the lead characters of that book forming the periphery of this one. But where Sonia spoke of the well-established upper middle class and landed gentry, this one deals with a self-made man of reasonably humble background, who has travelled to America and, through his natural savvy, and some frankly exploitative behaviour, made millions there. Back in England, Aylmer Lancing buys a great house in Sussex and spends the rest of his life enjoying the spoils, until illness gets in his way. He has overstretched even his enormous vitality and some sort of family weakness has perhaps shown through. This preoccupation with inherited family 'strains' is classic McKenna, where the taints of the blood have huge impacts on the fate of the generations. Our central character is Aylmer's son, Deryk. Aylmer's wife is long dead and Deryk has been his sole responsibility for most of the boy's life. At the beginning of the novel Deryk returns home after a couple of years' broadening time abroad, full of the independence of spirit of those in their early twenties, and aching to do his own thing, supported by his huge inheritance. But Aylmer is not convinced by his son's wilfulness and puts all sorts of restrictions in his path. Deryk feels let down and domineered, having been largely his own boss over a long period. Troubles are escalated when Aylmer puts the stop to a romance between Deryk and a local girl, Idina Penrose, who has been a longtime friend of the family, but who is not wealthy or worldly. Misunderstanding and misery come between them and Idina marries a slightly nerve-wracked older man, Sidney Dawson, for whose horrendously bitchy sister she has worked, being held in virtual bondage. Dawson pesters her continuously while she is in a low state, feeling unloved by Deryk, and finally breaks her down. She and Deryk become fully estranged, and he struggles on trying to prove pridefully that he can survive without his inheritance, in pique at his father. Aylmer's illness is advancing and reaches its end. Sidney Dawson also sickens and dies, which leaves both Deryk and Idina free. They slowly reconnect, and it seems that their dream of being together will finally be realised; a marriage is arranged. Deryk inherits and begins to realise what a weight having untold sums is, when you're not sure what to do with it. Though one could be flippant about this as a plot element, McKenna actually handles it well. He is convincing about not only Deryk's sense of flummoxedness, but also about the sense of nervous tension it engenders. Deftly combining this psychological element with his less convincing theory about the slight taint in the Lancing blood, he has Deryk slowly build up a sense of panic, ennui, dulled enjoyment of life and worry over Idina. He has discovered that he has changed since their first romance, and in his maturity finds her slavishness toward him and simple nature quite cloying. He gets ruder and less controlled with all around him, with almost a Nietzschean superman attitude rippling through his nervousness. All culminates at a house he has purchased in Pall Mall. The renovations are nearing completion, with only the rooftop garden, which will replace a domed skylight over the great hall, remaining to be completed. One evening, with the war of 1914 just about to be announced and soldiers in the streets, he hosts Idina and two close friends on a tour of the house. When the tour is complete they are on the roof looking at the girders which will support the garden. He tells the others to meet him at his rooms because some ideas have come to him which he wants to sketch for the builders. They depart, and what begins for Deryk is a truth-telling examination of his life, though done under the pressure of depression, tension, and a feeling that he's done all he can in life already, and that any further living will essentially just be an exercise in repetition. He convinces himself, superman-style, that he is taking control where others would quail, and that suicide is his answer. A good part of this realisation is backed by the awfulness of having to 'unannounce' his marriage to Idina, who has been through enough already. McKenna then does something quite interesting. He has Deryk loop a builders' rope around his ankle and prepare to jump from the rooftop terrace into the great hall of the house, I assume to give the indication that he got entangled and unbalanced, so as not to be a suicide, rather an accident, in the eyes of the world. Then, with closed eyes, preparing, Deryk realises he must open them to check that the rope is free to fall and not caught on anything. He steps forward inadvertently while doing so, and McKenna has him utter a startled cry as he falls into free space. Thus we are left with a conundrum; do we count this a suicide or an accident? I'm guessing that suicide was still held in sufficient ignominy in 1919 that leaving the question open was a good hedge for the bet. Still, leaving the story with this ending was a brave move for the times.

Commonplace Book

'"The new great ethical attack has to be launched against the cruelties and dirtinesses and dishonesties which are sanctioned by everyday custom and extolled as part of our competitive theory of survival. Do you think you could educate people out of that frame of mind?"

Deryk assumed an expression of regretful worldliness.

"You can't alter human nature, sir," he objected.

"That, my dear Deryk, has been said in every generation and disproved by every generation. People are lazy; and peculiarly lazy, you'll find, when it comes to radical thinking..."'

from Midas and Son by Stephen McKenna (Chapter VI, Part III)

Sonia by Stephen McKenna (1917)

I think two facts are pertinent to start with. One is that the running heads in this novel do not show the title, but the subtitle: Between Two Worlds. So my guess is that it was set as that, and the title was changed shortly before publication. There is a 1916 novel of that name listed in the British Library catalogue, by an American author, Philip Everett Curtiss. Perhaps either Curtiss himself objected to another of the same title so soon after, or McKenna or his publishers, Methuen, decided it wasn't wise. The other important fact is that, once published, this became by far McKenna's widest success, including the astonishing feat of being the 10th bestselling novel in the USA in 1918, and fifteen printings in its first year in the UK. It starts as the story of a group of well-heeled friends going to school in the midst of the frivolity of the late Victorian/Edwardian period. The school, Melton, seems to echo Winchester in terms of its location. The three main male characters are there together - our narrator, cool-pair-of-hands George Oakleigh, who is witty, upper middle class, destined for parliament; his personable but commanding Catholic aristo friend, Loring, destined for grand country house inheritance in the old order; and their rebellious ally, son of a lord, master of languages, kicker-around-the-world from childhood, O'Rane. The fourth main character is female, Sonia Dainton herself of the (new) title, who is the spirited daughter of a local family whose sons also attend the school, and to whom two of our three boys are 'attached' by familial connections of long standing. This school story is characterful, wise and entertaining, as Oakleigh and Loring try to tame O'Rane's exaggerated independence. They go through the wrench of leaving school a few years of massive development later, but this has been sweetened for O'Rane by his engagement to Sonia. As their careers progress, Oakleigh and Loring head into parliament, and O'Rane into business, but Sonia has grown headstrong and will have him no longer. Their young adult lives are coloured by this frosting between Sonia and O'Rane, and then her projected marriage to Loring which also goes haywire, and results in further awkwardness. Sonia through this period is a kind of talisman figure, constantly getting into more and more scrapes of loucheness and 'bad' behaviour. The whole acts as a portrait of the generation before the war and how its upper element coasted, not as an indictment necessarily - that was just how it was, and there were good and intelligent people everywhere, trying to make things work, and not just for themselves. Then comes 1914, and our team are placed all over, with much preoccupying them, serious and otherwise, and about to be taken up with a slide into disaster which will wipe most of that into insignificance. O'Rane loses all his money in a business catastrophe; Loring is in the House of Lords but dissatisfied; Oakleigh has lost his seat; Sonia is cavorting dangerously in, of all places, Germany. As war breaks out, O'Rane must go in commando-style and get her over the border to safety, but this does not result in any thawing of relations - they are both too proud. Two of our men enlist - Loring to his eventual death, O'Rane to horrific wounding ending in blindness. He heads back to Melton to take up a post as a master - his charisma and experience endear him very much to the boys. Sonia, much calmed, is living with her family nearby, and helping in the hospital which has been made of their home. She comes to see O'Rane in a very different frame of mind, devastated at his blindness. The piece finishes with their marriage and an ecstatic plea that the war may induce a society based on care rather than carelessness. I'm guessing that what made this so popular was the fact that it purported to be a picture of 'the way we live now'; it does seem a brave and very current attempt to see the society of before the war and to project what the assaulting cost of the war might create in the way of a better one. Naming the novel after Sonia is awkward because, although she is in many ways a catalyst in the book, she is not a good heroine, or even particularly likeable. And it did have moments where the engine-steam seemed to run a bit thin. So, a good McKenna, but, despite its success, a great one only in moments.

Commonplace Book

'"According to the statistics I've got about another sixteen days of life," he observed, as we left the Admiralty and walked along the Mall to the Club. "Second Lieutenants seem to last as much as a fortnight sometimes."

"Then I hope you'll get rapid promotion," I said. "The sooner you cease to be a Second Lieutenant the better."

He laughed a little bitterly.'

from Sonia by Stephen McKenna (Chapter IX, Part II)

Commonplace Book

'The world would be appreciably less unbearable if men and women could travel abroad without describing their travels on their return.'

from Sonia by Stephen McKenna (Chapter III, Part II)

Commonplace Book

'"...The enormous majority of M.P.s go into politics for what they can get out of them - legal jobs, office, local honour and glory - and it gets worse every time another poor man is elected. They can't afford to wait, these poor men; therefore they can hold no independent view; therefore they'll accept any dam', dirty, dishonest, shift their leaders may suggest. And so public life gets more sordid every day."'

from Sonia by Stephen McKenna (Chapter III, Part I)

Commonplace Book

'...A commonplace mind and life are the lot of the conventional, and conventionality is the atmosphere in which alone the timid can exist. To defy a convention may not gain a man the whole world, but it not infrequently saves his soul.'

from Sonia by Stephen McKenna (Chapter II, Part V)

Ninety-Six Hours' Leave by Stephen McKenna (1917)

This fourth novel is a return to the author's brightest mode. His first novel was close to the mood of this; the second and third deepened considerably. I don't know what prompted the return, but either of these modes is a welcome one for this reader - McKenna has a lovely rich aplomb whether he directs it toward the lighter or the darker. It's the story of four upper class young officers with a few days' leave in 1916. They return to London and re-emerge into their prior world - that of the top hotels, their restuarants and cafes, and the denizens who frequent them. One of them spies a gorgeous young woman as they alight at the station on first arriving, and makes it his mission to get to know her. Little does he know that the urge will lead him and his three fellows into a world of spying, political intrigue, royal impersonation and murder! The strangest thing about reading McKenna is the inexplicability of his reputation's demise. Perhaps I have to read further to find out why - he survived until 1967, publishing almost yearly, with his final novel in 1962. But he's never been 'rediscovered', never republished by lovers of the neglected author, is almost completely forgotten. From being hailed on his debut in 1912 as Oscar Wilde's truest inheritor, it seems that, after his huge success in 1918 with the novel after this one, it was all downhill, and a long way down. This lively stylish jeu d'esprit captures the spirit of elegance which is now more associated with Michael Arlen and the authors of the twenties. A kind of knowing cynicism pervades it, but not in a detrimental way. I'm guessing that the success of The Thirty-Nine Steps for John Buchan a few years previously provided an inspiration for this one's tangling with espionage, but the author was the nephew of a cabinet minister and close to that world of diplomacy and no doubt skulduggery, so his influences could have been multifarious. His style is assured and great fun.

Commonplace Book

'"This wasn't an amour," came an indignant interruption. "It was a romance."

"My dear young friend, the difference between a romance and an amour is the difference between a menu and a dinner."'

from Ninety-Six Hours' Leave by Stephen McKenna (Chapter XIV)

Commonplace Book

'"...If you were a girl, you'd know that girls of seventeen aren't expected to have strange young men hanging about for them in railway stations."

"But every romance starts at a railway station - and they all end at a church. I've knocked about the world a tremendous lot, and I speak with some knowledge."

"Of the churches?"

"No; that's why the romance ends there. I meant the railway stations - Victoria above all. If I were the only man in the world..."

"But you're not. My father always fetches me away when I'm on late duty, and he'd have something to say if he found out..."

"Fathers should be deceived and not heard," answered the Kitten, with an impatient wave of the hand.'

from Ninety-Six Hours' Leave by Stephen McKenna (Chapter VI)

The Sixth Sense by Stephen McKenna (1915)

As is usual with this author, this novel makes the reader feel that they are in safe hands. McKenna is one of the links between Oscar Wilde and Michael Arlen in terms of literary history. He was applauded as Wilde's successor on the publication of his first novel in 1912, which was indeed laden with wit and tart aphoristic prose. The subsequent two have travelled on from that, into the post-Edwardian mindset, where manners are still important but not so mannerism. This third one deals with the return to England of Toby Merivale after many years of world-wandering. He is caught up in London's current political machinations in the form of militant suffragism, and with his old friends now in much more influential positions in British politics. Most are not supportive of Joyce Davenant, one of the main campaigners, but Toby falls for her. Unfortunately she is involved in a series of kidnaps, and her elder sister is the bad party in a notorious divorce at exactly the same time. The Davenants' social stock falls disastrously! The sixth sense of the title is in the mind of Toby's best friend Aintree, known as The Seraph, who finds, through its agency, one of the kidnapped. This is a standard story of love, energised by fine elegant writing and cool stylish worldliness.

Commonplace Book

'...The difference between eccentricity and madness may be measured in pounds sterling. A rich man is never mad in England, unless, of course, his heirs-at-law cast wistful glances at the pounds sterling...'

from The Sixth Sense by Stephen McKenna (Chapter XII)

Commonplace Book

'I have always found the man who demolishes a religion only one degree less tiresome than the man who discovers religion for the first time.'

from The Sixth Sense by Stephen McKenna (Chapter IV)