Commonplace Book

'"...the truth is always sad," Colthurst said quite gently. "The great fundamental facts are not only sad - they are almost hideous. That is why nature tries to hide them under leaves and flowers, and glories of colour, and of light and shadow, and why we try to hide them under poetry and art. That is why, taking it at a lower level, we lay out gardens, make fountains play, light up lamps. In a commonplace way even these trivialities help to hide the 'accepted hells beneath', the ugly bases of our life..."'

from The Wages of Sin by Lucas Malet (Book II, Chapter VI)

Walls and Hedges by J. Redwood Anderson (1919)

This was Anderson's first publication post-war, and I wonder whether he served and what effect that service had. Coming through the familiar tone from his previous volumes is an unexpected repetitiveness and occasional flatness. That said, there are moments in this which soar. The piece entitled Ecstacy is a perfect example of untrammelled exploration of a tender feeling. His word- and indeed phrase-choice in this poem is spectacular, most obviously when read aloud, allowing the discovery and wonder in the poem to really breathe. There is another called Stars which unfurls a similar array of artillery, with words and inherent wonder brilliantly building the sense of the feeling explored together. The other explanation of the flatness sometimes apparent here is of course the effect of modernism and its typifying repetitions - I am hoping he steered clear, because, as exampled here, it doesn't aid his style. Quite whose it did aid is something I'm on the road to finding out - anyone's? Despite its moments of magnificence, this is the first Anderson volume I've read where he looks vulnerable to failing. Perhaps, though, that's a sign of the movement and turmoil required for something really great to come.....

Commonplace Book

'There was war in Szechuan - if you could call it war, for there were no posters about war. No pictures of strapping heroes encouraged those who felt neither strapping nor heroic to find out what tonic war could do for them. In Szechuan war advertised itself; one saw the war and one saw the heroes - which was unfortunate from the point of view of those who deal in war. Even the losers advertised the war. I watched the dead losers go, in procession but not in triumph, face downward in the river, threading their forlorn way through the plaited rapids, pausing indifferently in the quiet reaches where the water enfolded them like gold silk. I saw the less fortunate losers come to seek the protection of the mountains, the wounded slung painfully on poles carried by unfriendly coolies forced into service, or riding on bleeding and dying ponies. The unwounded also carried significant news of the glory of war; their sunken eyes saw nothing, their faces were like crumpled paper, they wavered on their feet. Only those of the vanquished who escaped first were strong enough to revenge themselves upon a cruel world. Like locusts they paused in their passing, and where they paused desolation entered.'

from The Yang-Tse River, a piece in The Little World by Stella Benson

Commonplace Book

'Among boys there are laws of honour and chivalrous codes, not written or formally taught, but intuitively understood by all, and invariably acted upon by the loyal and the true. The race is not nearly civilized, we must remember. Thus, not to follow your leader whithersoever he may think proper to lead; to back out of an expedition because the end of it frowns dubious, and the present fruit of it is discomfort; to quit a comrade on the road, and return home without him: these are the tricks which no boy of spirit would be guilty of, let him come to any description of mortal grief in consequence. Better so than have his own conscience denouncing him sneak. Some boys who behave boldly enough are not troubled by this conscience, and the eyes and the lips of their fellows have to supply the deficiency. They do it with just as haunting, and even more horrible pertinacity, than the inner voice, and the result, if the probation be not very severe and searching, is the same. The leader can rely on the faithfulness of his host: the comrade is sworn to serve.'

from The Ordeal of Richard Feverel by George Meredith (Chapter III)

Commonplace Book

'Miss Crookenden refused to see what was unlovely, to admit the existence of what was impure. If she needs must touch pitch, she would whitewash her pitch first, believing thereby to escape defilement. Many of the sweetest and noblest women go through life practising these pious frauds upon themselves. It is impossible not to honour them. Yet fraud, even of this high-minded description, remains fraud still, and brings its inevitable punishment along with it.'

from The Wages of Sin by Lucas Malet (Book II, Chapter IV)

Drift by James Hanley (1930)

This is at once an amazing and a confounding book. Its picture of a young Catholic man and his fight with ideas of God, religion and duty both inherited and wished for is at its best astonishing. The visceral depth of the portrait rolls in poetic pulses through a landscape of the mind beautifully captured. This internal struggle is set within a richly rounded external scene, made up of the lilts and customs of the Irish in Liverpool in the 1920s; the hypocritical deceits and religious time-serving, the hints of sensuality under the iron hand of uprightness, the emotional pull of surviving on nothing, as well as physical hunger and want. Joe Rourke is part of all of this, and yet yearning for more in what seems an alternatingly knowing and then ignorant way. There are also, though, disturbances of this strong mixture; times when it seems Hanley has become almost unhinged - he'll drift off into a peculiar meditation on some seemingly unimportant or odd issue, or surprise the reader with a reference which is deranged or, if not, at least utterly disconnected. I don't think that these are fully intentional, but rather the effluvia of a notion that this needed to be written at high heat and left to roll its own course. A self-indulgence (which occurs a little too often) I'm tempted to forgive as the results are otherwise brilliant.

Mother of Pearl by Anatole France (1892)

This is France-as-antiquarian at another high point. The first group of stories deal with the times surrounding first of all the birth of Christ and secondly middle ages developments in sainthood. Here his voice is sometimes folkloric and always playful and often redolent of "the real thing". The second, and larger, group are stories in the byways of the French Revolution, with portraits of minor aristocrats, their adherents and tormentors tussling in harsh and uncertain conditions which bred deception and secrecy. Each piece is not so interested in narrative fullness so much as the sketch-like capturing of moments in time. They can feel a little unended and unfinished as a result. France's tone is his own alone; there is no mistaking him, and there is a claim to originality in that. I think the reason that his popularity has dimmed from its original dizzy heights is that he is not a sensualist - heavy atmosphere and rich description are not his stock. Rather it is a light touch on people and their situations, examined with wise amusement and a wry sentimentality which occasionally descends to a deeper pathos. This mixture, combined with what would now be seen as esoteric subject matter, consign him to unpopularity. I too find it unaffecting but there is no doubt that the clear air of it is refreshing and shouldn't be underestimated.