Thursday, February 22, 2018

Commonplace Book

'Timid and trusting natures, once deceived, invariably become more suspicious than the sceptical. One unkind doctor will make them detest the whole medical profession, and a single encounter with some dishonest person will drive them to a really vindictive misanthropy. The gentle Mr. Gloucester now felt that he hated the entire tribe of lawyers; they were all bloodsuckers, knaves, and liars; they all sought his life, he knew; daily they murdered hundreds by tormenting communications, and not a soul was ever the wiser. His eyes brimmed over with tears at the idea of the perishing innocent families - done to death and ruin through the worries of a legal correspondence.'

from Love and the Soul Hunters by John Oliver Hobbes (Chapter VII)

Monday, February 19, 2018

The Zincali by George Borrow (1841)

Books about the gypsies have been few and far between, relatively speaking. This, and others of Borrow's authorship, seem to me to have been considered as standard texts, perhaps because they were close enough to only texts, for a long period. It was not until Isabel Fonseca's brilliant Bury Me Standing in 1995 that this book's long reign as a kind of standard text was truly over, though it was a creaking century and a half-old relic by then. Borrow is a strange character. I'm guessing I will get to know him better in slowly reading through his small catalogue, but at the moment he seems quite an egotist, someone in the mould of a hyper-Christian baby Byron. This has its negativities, but it also aids compulsion - his insistence on his conclusions and his strong concern with separating poor scholarship about the gypsies and their customs and language from that which has some merit means that his points carry. This book originated in a period he spent in Spain (the subtitle is An Account of the Gypsies of Spain) where he seemed to travel about a lot with the purpose of converting the Iberian clans of the race to Christianity. He has all sorts of interactions with them, key ones being recounted at specific points where examples are needed for claims being made. Most of these points surround their customs and language, and what the present state of them reveals of the origins of the gypsies. He contrasts the Spanish Gitano language in particular with other expressions of the gypsy dialect in Hungary, Germany, the Balkans and so on. I am imagining that this is where the idea of them being an outcast sect from somewhere in Hindustan was first popularly canvassed. The examples given of their language very much seem to tend toward proof of a Sanskrit origin, with some Persian thrown in some time after, and then imports of all sorts as they moved westward. My memory of Fonseca's book is very thin now on detail, so I can't remember how much further we've come in these discoveries. The other fascinating element is only hinted at here. Was Borrow himself a gypsy? There are tiny thrusts in that direction, indicating that he had had a reasonably long history of contact and felt so familiar that he was at ease in their company and knew how to convince them of his trustworthiness so as to obtain more information. But of course a baby Byron may say that for reasons of bravado - perhaps the reality was a lot less certain, and a little more perilous? Outsider nosiness is particularly unwelcome in gypsy circles. This volume has both a significant sense of outdatedness and a contingent and partial pull of interest; here's to a clearer picture arising from future works.

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Commonplace Book

'...There are two kinds of composure. One is morbid and arises from a feeble or fatigued vitality. It betokens a genuine lack of interest in all things and is the least pleasing form of egoism. The other kind, which is magnetic, is the sign of complete sanity - a heart at peace and a physical organisation without weakness...'

from Love and the Soul Hunters by John Oliver Hobbes (Chapter II)

Sunday, February 11, 2018

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.

Friday, February 9, 2018

Commonplace Book

'But because he didn't have it, he continued to despise what he most desired. In the evenings, after the family dinner, alone again, he watched himself suffer until his suffering became so acute that it disappeared of its own accord, unable to transcend this supreme point. Then he went to bed extremely weary, and the next day started all over again in the same way...'

from The Last Days by Raymond Queneau (Chapter 11)