The Lady Paramount by Henry Harland (1902)

 This is the second iteration of what I call 'Harland 3'. Harland 1 was the pseudonymous works by "Sidney Luska"; Harland 2 was the early works under his own name. Harland 3 had by far the most success, being the most primary-coloured and concentrated. And the most romantic. I identified the previous iteration of this last group (The Cardinal's Snuff-Box) by saying that it had chocolate- or cigar-box brilliance of hue. This one's the same. A scion of the current ruling family of a mythical Adriatic island, which has been incorporated into the new Italy, decides she will seek out her cousin, of the denuded branch, regarded as the 'true' one. He's living the life of a gentleman in England. As with The Cardinal's Snuff-Box, in some senses, the action centres around fond deception, falling in love, the test of the other's genuineness of feeling, above and beyond the call of money and position. It also has the same concerns with the Catholic church. It clips along very brightly, the intensification of focus keeping it clear and essential. Their relationship leaps along with playfulness and some charm, until the inevitable revelation, and the melding back together of the parts of the family into a royal whole. My interest has been piqued as to how Harland suddenly 'got' that he could achieve this far greater clarity and pointedness. My suspicions lie with his wife as a potential co-writer. Aline Merriam appears to have been a sculptor, but she did apparently complete his last novel after he died. Is she the person responsible for the escalation of definition?

Lives of Houses edited by Kate Kennedy and Hermione Lee (2020)

 This is a themed anthology which suffers from the usual disease - the effort of compiling such disparate material is a tokenistic one. It is meant as a revelation of what houses mean in human lives, and has a very particular bent toward writers. As such, it's a slightly middling affair. The writing itself being the core of these people's lives, any talk of their houses, however influential in glancing ways, feels like an outer layer of a secret we've already penetrated. Outer layers of course retain their interest, though it doesn't feel particularly essential: one's fascination briefly flares (in some cases) and then dies down without much permanent increment. To do the volume justice, a couple of discoveries have stayed with me: the fact that Lear's nonsense wasn't always brilliant, rather drab, is a reality-check - all tikky-wikky and witchy-wee; and that the Disraelis were seen as arrivistes; and the sad story of Yeats' tower, which is the only more lasting memory associated with the subject matter. Like most subject anthologies, this is just OK. 

The Whisperer in Darkness by HP Lovecraft (2007)

 This is the first volume in a paperback reissue of all of Lovecraft's works. I'd been directed toward him many a time over many years, via the interest in him of people I knew. I finally got there, and my responses are mixed. There are nine pieces in this first volume, among them some of his most famous, like The Dunwich Horror, Dagon and At the Mountains of Madness. Initially, with short pieces like Dagon as a first exposure, I was quietly impressed; there seemed a strange place he occupied, full of landscapes empty of obvious life but which harboured it in hidden places. A fascination with archaeological records persisted, showing lost civilisations and the possible influence of vaguely hinted at others, either of a previously unknown prehistoric intelligent species, or visitors from elsewhere, surviving secretly. This was riddled with the author's queasiness at such things, which was elaborately explained. I could also see where the prejudice against him has received its energy, through the hackneyed adage "show, don't tell". There's a lot of telling here. But also a lot of showing, so that relation is an interesting one. As the volume progressed, though, that criticism gathered some weight, I will admit. It foundered in the middle of the volume in his longest piece (at least as far as I am aware) The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, which really did chug back and forth in a tiring sargasso sea of blasphemous this, and stench-laden that. It would have been better if those elements had been searing, and capable of raising the ghost of Giger, but they were less horrifying by quite a way, mainly because they were so often referenced as "nameless" or  "incapable of description" or whatever. And the treatment was profoundly repetitive. Surviving behind though was a peculiar atmosphere. The depth and specificity of his imagining of these others and their alien cultures still has great underlying charm. It seems to me that his pulp origins are most betrayed in this element: these stories would be much better not read all together in omnibus volumes, but encountered periodically, at good distances from one another. He seems to me almost the paragon of a little going a long way. So I'll no doubt pick up the second volume at some point, but at the moment I'm Lovecrafted out.

After the Rain by John Bowen (1958)

 This one confirms some conclusions about Bowen that I had come to after reading his first from two years earlier. He's a great ideas-man, but shows a few faultlines in terms of execution. That earlier one had transplanted a historical situation of the 1700s into 1950s Scotland, and if the melding was a little awkward, well, the result was fascinating. This one posits the end of the current world in flood, has a group of survivors aboard a raft who are fairly typical middle-class English types of the time, has a little fun with that, but awkwardly. It has the feel of a slightly stiff black and white film starring John Mills, Shirley Eaton and Kenneth More. But it's intriguing all the same. The eight survivors cope broadly well to begin with, but dark patches begin to appear as time goes by. When they are becalmed for an extended period, the sun beating down on their raft and no discernible movement, they start to go a bit doolally. It ends up with their 'leader' Arthur declaring himself a god and withdrawing to the one bedroom aboard. Most of the group fall in with the plan in their sense of exposedness and uncertainty. The parallels with Lord of the Flies and its like are obvious - were Faber, the publishers of both, looking for another Golding? We are clearly expected to come to the conclusion that Arthur has got bored with his divinity when he declares that he's not the god, rather the high priest of the god, and comes out to interact with everyone again - it's a neat sleight. They get moving again finally after several months, encountering strange atmospheres of the sea and movements of its animals. Finally, after a terrifying encounter with a giant squid, Arthur declares that the animal was an incarnation of their god. His jumped-at next step is an "expiation" - revealed only to John, the main character - they will secretly sacrifice the as yet unborn baby of Sonya, one of the group. John believes it to be his child, and is enjoined by Arthur to take part in the coming sacrifice as punishment for his consistent questioning of Arthur's status. John spills the plan out on the deck to the bodybuilder Tony, who is a simple working class man who's kept out of most of the middle-class delusional shenanigans, as they are now confirmed to be. His ground-level morality is outraged and he engages Arthur in a fight to both their deaths overboard. The following morning the remainder of the group finally spot an island - as though there had been a pattern of lockedness which the death of Arthur has symbolically broken. The blurb mentions that Angus Wilson had called this "a satire of the first order". I have to say I'm not quite sure that's true. If it does have targets, they feel momentary and isolated, coming in minor cuts. The rest is more directly adventuresome. But it is limpid and bold, if a little silly. Funny combination, which phrase sums up Bowen for me at the moment. 

Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym (1953)

 Great to return to Pym again. This one feels like a subtle progression from the previous one in one sense in particular - 'dangerous' characters are a little more foregrounded. Like her first novel (about which I remember little else) the centre of this one is a village in the country. And again like it, it involves people nearby to the church or in it, and their love affairs, tight lives and niggles with one another. But it's no I. Compton-Burnett hell-stoker; the milieu is rounded out instead with incisive wit of a more standard variety. The two titular characters are an older woman from a particular Oxford college who has since married a clergyman, and a younger one of the same college who was tutored by the older and is still on the marriage market. The older, Jane, has moved to the village with her husband as vicar. The younger, Prudence, is in London, working at a small office. Jane and Prudence have kept up their relationship, with Jane feeling almost responsible sometimes for providing Prudence with marriage options. Prudence, meanwhile, has had quite a few relationships, about some of which Jane knows nothing. We work through the process of acclimatization into the village's (and the church's) life and with its characters as it happens to Jane and her husband Nicholas. And we concurrently examine Prudence's life in the office and at her flat in London with similar attention to variances of character at work and her private aims, the main one of these an adoration of her boss which is unrequited. Shot through with humour, this is what can be seen as typical Pym territory, as it veers between gentility and pointedness, warmly familiar pokes and somewhat cooler stabs. The thing which differentiates this a little is, as aforementioned, a livelier attention to characters, two in particular, who don't quite play by the rules. Jane herself is an uncomfortable blurter on occasion, steaming in before she's really thought something through, ruffling feathers with awkward truths. And even more of this stripe is village woman Jessie Morrow - a small, mouse-like, tiny-voiced companion to dragon Miss Doggett, who is splendid and severe. Jessie is the proverbial dark horse, revealed as having steel under her featherbed exterior, as she firmly (and unexpectedly) decides to oust Prudence from the affections of a local lothario - another of Jane's plans for her younger protégé goes astray. These small harshnesses only work in the way they do, I think, because they are couched within such a reassuring frame, though it would be interesting to see what Pym could do with an entirely savage free-for-all. 

Perseus and Andromeda by Richard Le Gallienne (1902)

 This is an odd one for Gallienne in terms of its publishing history. It was published by Robert Howard Russell in New York, and as far as I can tell, never in Britain. Its subtitle is The Story Retold, and Gallienne says in a short preface that he's taken most of it from Ovid with nods to Lucian and Hesiod. It is a relatively standard retelling, weaving together strands from these various sources. One interesting element is his echoing of the terms of Christianity at the beginning in his discussion of the promulgation of the worship of Dionysus: talk of it meeting with opposition, creating many martyrs, and seeing it literally as a "gospel". From there on it takes on the form of a typical quest of ancient myth - there are very few surprises, but enough pleasure. Russell seems to have been a slightly dodgy character, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Gallienne was unhappy with this production - there are a good number of fairly obvious typos, and the illustrations are listed randomly on their contents page, meaning an internet-researched guessing game about which is which. On the other hand it has a lovely cover. A footnote really, but an enjoyable enough one.

The Contradictions by Zulfikar Ghose (1966)

 This was Ghose's first published work of extended fiction. Two years earlier, in Statement Against Corpses, a shared volume with B. S. Johnson, he had published several brilliant short stories. This is a far more unsteady affair. It's the story of a couple, newly married, he for the second time and quite a bit older, and she for the first. It's set in the period immediately after the Second World War, and plays to Ghose's knowledge in the sense that Christopher is a civil servant who is sent to India; he and Sylvia attempt to discover that country together, and hear for the first time of the plan for independence while they are there. In the end, the discoveries Sylvia makes are more about herself and her relationship, though India's rich colours do affect her, as does the jockeying for position among the British 'elite'. Christopher is sent home after an indiscretion is magnified by an unscrupulous career-climber. Their relationship remains the focus in mid-forties England; they experience a drifting apart and a recognition of different aims. Sylvia is a little disappointed by Christopher seemingly dropping the intense connection and intellectual sympathy they once had; instead he worships mammon in the City. She prefers their house, and particularly its garden, in the country. Christopher's health has been revealed to be in question - their sexual life is very curtailed, and he experiences fainting fits: his heart is failing. Sylvia gets pregnant, but loses the baby. This series of lowerings culminates in Christopher's death in London while they are apart, not fully separated, but living independent lives. The psychology is the thing here - the book is intended as a revelation of minds: a portrait of the couple mainly based in the tones of how Sylvia thinks, her inner preoccupations - it has something of the spareness of novels like The Waves. And from that point of view, it's got something - this is the part of it which is most luminous. It has a rarefied atmosphere as a result, though - some of those preoccupations seem a little precious. It seems to have been Ghose's aim to simply be true to their middle class backgrounds - 'intellectual' conversation predominates, artful impressions are struck, the ordinaries of life are almost absent, as is any presence of the just concluded, all-enveloping conflagration of the war - which makes the novel feel like it's listing a bit, could sink. There are also some drops of fidelity in the writing, where banality is approached - dialogue and description feel a little flat and forced and formal. In the end, the brightness and intensity of the psychological picture help it survive, but all the same it's a partial success. Look forward to a more whole, consistent work amongst those that follow.