Supplementary: Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice – a comparison

As I read ‘Sense and Sensibility‘ earlier this month I was struck by the many similarities between the novel and ‘Pride and Prejudice‘. My initial theory was that ‘Sense‘ was an early draft of ‘Pride‘, but that didn’t withstand much research – as Claire @ nerdslikeme.co.uk pointed out in a comment on an earlier post, although ‘Pride‘ was published second it was written first. Nevertheless, ‘Sense‘ is, to me, the junior or lesser work. Components of ‘Sense‘ which work well are even more impressive when portrayed in ‘Pride‘.

Both novels focus on the romantic affairs of a family of women, in which a father figure is to all intents and purposes missing. Mr Bennet is of course alive, but disastrously abdicates any involvement in his daughters’ romances, until in Lydia’s case it is too late. In both novels the families’ inheritance situation is precarious – if Mr Bennet dies the family will have to leave Longbourn; Mr Dashwood’s death leaves his second family in a position where they have to leave their home and take a cottage donated by a charitable family member, taking at the same time a large step down the social ladder.

The events of the novels are each described through the narrative perspective of an older sister. Elinor and Elizabeth are both sensible, mature young women who are embarrassed and scandalised by the conduct of their younger sisters. They are not completely reliable narrators – they withhold information from the reader and perhaps themselves, but their judgment is the one we are invited to trust. In terms of the family dynamics they take the place of their mothers who are portrayed as less intelligent and lacking in mature judgment. Younger teenage sisters are a cause of drama in each household. Marianne nearly engages herself to an unsuitable young man; Lydia does so, and goes further. Willoughby is immature and flirts with Marianne while never seriously contemplating an engagement – his financial affairs and his profligacy means he has to marry well; Wickham is equally focused on marrying for money while having fun as a single man, with little concern for the feelings of the women he dallies with.

Each novel also has a spare sister. Margaret Dashwood plays little or no part in ‘Sense’, in terms of the plot nor as a commentator or observer; Mary Bennet plays arguably a slightly more important  role in Pride, but is easily forgotten amongst the noise generated by her siblings.

Secrets and lies are at the heart of both novels. Much of what occurs in the texts is hidden from the reader. Marianne has no idea why Willoughby leaves Devon so suddenly, nor why he gives her the cold shoulder when they meet in London; all Mr Darcy’s efforts to salvage the situation with Lydia and Wickham is equally hidden from the Bennet family until near the end of the novel. Elinor has to bear the secret of Mr Ferrars’ engagement with Lucy Steele until it is finally broken; at least Elizabeth has someone to share her secrets with in her sister, Jane.

Finally, it all comes down to money. This is the central obsession of both novels. Many conversations revolve around character’s income, their savings, the inheritance they are likely to receive, etc. In ‘Pride’ there is an inflation of expectations – the sums Mrs Bennet talks about as being suitable for her daughters’ prospective and theoretical husbands gradually increase through the course of the novel. The despicable Mr Collins explains to Elizabeth that he is prepared to overlook her relative poverty, and later Mr Darcy makes a similar point, with broadly the same result. The same conversations dominate ‘Sense’; we are never far away from speculation about the worth of an individual in terms of income and savings, and Willoughby’s marriage to an heiress allows other characters scandalised by his behaviour towards Marianne to quickly overcome their scruples.

In comparing the novels I am not of course suggesting that Austen has recycled her material. She famously accepted that her work was narrow in scope, once writing:

“What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited sketches, full of variety and glow? How could I possibly join them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour?”

It is her ultimate achievement that she produced such stunning novels with such fine material. Van Gogh painted sunflowers many times, but each painting is unique. In considering ‘Pride‘ the more successful novel, that’s a personal view mainly in relation to how the central romance is portrayed – I enjoy the love story of Elizabeth and Darcy, while Edward and Elinor never really go through the same journey or face the same challenges. What do you think?

Supplementary: On servants and their powers of invisibility

Much has been written about the invisibility of servants in society, an invisibility that is apparent in Austen’s novels. The middle class families that we follow in these texts are supported by a large cast of characters who wash their clothes, clean their houses and cook their food, but whose existence is barely acknowledged and who are largely silent. Convention of the time and for decades to come dictated that the upper classes act as if the servants attending them did not exist. Because many employers disliked seeing servants at work, housework had to be done before the family or their guests breakfasted. In larger houses to avoid awkward encounters between master and servants the latter used special entrances and corridors. Doors linked to connecting corridors were covered by screens, fake bookcases or wallpaper, so that servants could appear quietly and efficiently when called. The concept of a tradesman’s entrance at the back of a house has persisted to the present day in many parts of the UK.

There is a really striking example of this phenomenon in ‘Sense and Sensibility’. It’s worth first reading this extract from chapter 16. I have edited it slightly but I think you will spot what I mean:

“One morning, about a week after his (Willoughby’s) leaving the country, Marianne was prevailed on to join her sisters in their usual walk. …Amongst the objects in the scene, they soon discovered an animated one; it was a man on horseback riding towards them. In a few minutes they could distinguish him to be a gentleman.“

Marianne, in a case of wishful thinking,  mistakes the man for her missing lover, even though Elinor warns her that “The person is not tall enough for him, and has not his air.” It turns out the gentleman in question is Edward Ferrars, who on reaching the ladies “dismounted, and giving his horse to his servant, walked back with them to Barton, whither he was purposely coming to visit them.”

So at the risk of stating the obvious, let’s analyse what happens there. They spot a man on horseback coming towards them. He is unquestionably alone. Not a man and his companion or servant, just a man. As he gets nearer there is something about his appearance – we are not told what – that allows the ladies to deduce that he is a gentleman. This could be his clothing, his bearing (air), his horse, or something else. A few yards later, all of a sudden he has acquired a servant, who can take care of his horse for him.

I suppose there are any number of theoretical explanations for this sudden appearance, but for me the most obvious one is that the servant was there all the time, but is just not considered worthy of mention. He is so unimportant he just doesn’t count, or is effectively invisible.

There is a further example of this phenomenon towards the end of the novel, (chapter 47) when the rumour of Edward Ferrars’ marriage reaches the Dashwood ladies. What is striking in this extract is that it is one of the few instances in all Austen where a servant gets to speak at length to his employers. The phrases in brackets are my annotations, of course.

“Their man servant had been sent one morning to Exeter on business; and when, as he waited at table, he had satisfied the inquiries of his mistress as to the event of his errand, this was his voluntary communication—

“I suppose you know, ma’am, that Mr. Ferrars is married.”

(This in itself is pretty remarkable. Although the anonymous servant has thus far been replying to questions from the ladies, his comment about Mr. Ferrars is a “voluntary communication” – he offers up this information without being asked. In many other households this would have been considered impertinent – you speak when you are spoken to, and not before.)

“Marianne gave a violent start, fixed her eyes upon Elinor, saw her turning pale, and fell back in her chair in hysterics. (Again) Mrs. Dashwood, whose eyes, as she answered the servant’s (still no name) inquiry, had intuitively taken the same direction, was shocked to perceive by Elinor’s countenance how much she really suffered, and a moment afterwards, alike distressed by Marianne’s situation, knew not on which child to bestow her principal attention.

The servant (still), who saw only that Miss Marianne was taken ill, had sense enough to call one of the maids, (who also has no name) who, with Mrs. Dashwood’s assistance, supported her into the other room. By that time, Marianne was rather better, and her mother leaving her to the care of Margaret and the maid (ok, you get the point), returned to Elinor, who, though still much disordered, had so far recovered the use of her reason and voice as to be just beginning an inquiry of Thomas, (at last!) as to the source of his intelligence. Mrs. Dashwood immediately took all that trouble (all that trouble? hardly a day’s shift down the mines, is it?) on herself; and Elinor had the benefit of the information without the exertion (stretching the definition of the term exertion here) of seeking it.

“Who told you that Mr. Ferrars was married, Thomas?”

“I see Mr. Ferrars myself, ma’am, this morning in Exeter, and his lady too, Miss Steele as was. (we can tell Thomas is working class because he makes grammatical mistakes in his verb cases) They was (were, young man) stopping in a chaise at the door of the New London Inn, as I went there with a message from Sally at the Park to her brother, who is one of the post-boys. I happened to look up as I went by the chaise, and so I see directly it was the youngest Miss Steele; so I took off my hat, and she knew me and called to me, and inquired after you, ma’am, and the young ladies, especially Miss Marianne, and bid me I should give her compliments and Mr. Ferrars’s, their best compliments and service, and how sorry they was they had not time to come on and see you, but they was in a great hurry to go forwards, for they was going further down for a little while, but howsever, when they come back, they’d make sure to come and see you.” (very little sentence structure, another indication of Thomas’s lack of formal education).

“But did she tell you she was married, Thomas?”

“Yes, ma’am. She smiled, and said how she had changed her name since she was in these parts. She was always a very affable and free-spoken young lady, and very civil behaved. So, I made free to wish her joy.”

Thomas is then grilled in detail as to what he see, what happened, etc. Finally:

“Mrs. Dashwood could think of no other question, and Thomas and the tablecloth, now alike needless, were soon afterwards dismissed.”

Yes, you read that right, Thomas and the tablecloth were alike needless. A servant and a piece of linen are lumped together, inanimate objects, both worthless.

Is Austen reflecting the contemptuous attitudes towards servants of her class, or satirising them? It is hard to tell – Mrs Dashwood can be thoughtless but she is never cruel or impolite, even to servants.

What do you think?

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, 1811

Six years after Trafalgar, while the Peninsular War rages on the continent and social discontent stirs at home, Jane Austen turned her attention to the challenges facing a very specific class of young women in Georgian England.

A complex will, and the early death of the family’s father, see the widowed Mrs Dashwood, and daughters, Elinor, Marianne and Margaret, left with a small income and no residence. John, half brother to the sisters and heir to the family home, undertakes to care for his half-siblings, but quickly reneges on the promise in one of those acts of self-persuasion in which Austen’s characters specialise. Treated as unwelcome guests in what has been until recently their family home, the Dashwoods relocate to to Barton Cottage in Devon , near the home of their relative, Sir John Middleton, although not before oldest daughter Elinor has ‘formed an attachment’ with Edward Ferrars, brother of their half-brother’s wife. I hope you are following this because there will be a quiz. (In following the narrative it helps to understand the convention that if there are two or more unmarried sisters, the eldest will be Miss Dashwood, and the younger Miss Marianne Dashwood, etc. A pen and paper help as well).

Settling into their modest new home in Devon, the Dashwood ladies also settle into what constitutes Devon society, assisted by Sir John, his wife, Lady Middleton, his mother-in-law, the rather common Mrs Jennings, and family friend, Colonel Brandon. The Colonel is attracted to Marianne, although she finds the almost twenty-year age gap off-putting. To be fair she is only sixteen, so you can understand her concerns.

While out walking one day, Marianne sprains her ankle, and is carried home by a charming young rescuer, John Willoughby. Willoughby and Marianne quickly become very close, and their intimate behaviour soon suggests to Mrs Dashwood and Elinor that they are engaged. Willoughby takes Marianne to see the home he expects to inherit one day, and cuts off a lock of her hair. Taking a lock of hair is a traditionally symbolic and intimate act. But the long awaited engagement fails to materialise. Then out of the blue Willoughby informs the family that has to go to London on business,and is unlikely to return within the year.  Marianne is devastated.

One beau is replaced by another. Edward Ferrars comes to visit. Remember him? Mysteriously, his earlier intimacy with Elinor is missing. He is restrained and diffident. Shortly after his puzzling visit, the Misses Steele, Anne and Lucy, cousins of Mrs. Jennings, come visiting, and in the first of many plot twists Lucy secretly tells Elinor she is engaged to Edward. Unable to see any wrong in a man who had apparently wooed her just a few months earlier, Elinor speculates that this is a loveless engagement which Edward’s sense of honour will not allow him to end.

At this point the speed of events accelerates. The Dashwood sisters (apart from the near invisible Margaret) travel with Mrs Jennings to London, to join the parties and dances that are a way of passing the time for the idle rich. Knowing him to be in town, Marianne writes to Willoughby, trying to arrange an assignation, but her letters go unanswered. Several days later, as Marianne’s distress at his silence escalates, they meet by chance at a dance, and Willoughby, with another woman, brushes Marianne off coldly. A blunt letter follows which claims that there was never any substance to their relationship, and telling her than he is now engaged to another woman. Young heiresses are a stock figure in these novels, along with cads, bluff uncles, giddy younger sisters and indulgent fathers. Marianne is once again devastated, and falls into a decline in which her health suffers. In a self-interested attempt to help, Colonel Brandon reveals to Elinor that Willoughby is a scoundrel who has previously seduced, impregnated, then abandoned Brandon’s young ward, Miss Eliza Williams.

Meanwhile, the Steele sisters have come to London as guests of Mrs Jennings. Unable to keep a secret, talkative Anne Steele betrays Lucy’s engagement to Edward. Chaos ensues. The Misses Steele are turned out of the house, and Edward is ordered by his wealthy mother to break off the engagement. He refuses and is promptly disinherited in favour of his brother, Robert.

So where does that leave the Dashwood ladies. Elinor’s love Edward is marrying someone beneath him, and who she suspects he does not love. Marianne’s love Willoughby is by now married to his heiress, and forever out of reach. And the novel is in its concluding chapters, so the author needs to hurry up and sort this out!

Marianne, moping over Willoughby, catches a cold and becomes dangerously ill. Colonel Brandon goes to fetch Marianne’s mother to her bedside. Unexpectedly, in a moment of what I suspect is intended to be high drama, Willoughby arrives. He confesses all to Elinor – his love for Marianne was genuine and having married for money he is now miserable. This is all well and fine but doesn’t really explain away his seduction of Colonel Brandon’s niece does it? Elinor softens somewhat but there’s not much she can say to him by way of comfort – he has made his choices.

Happily, Marianne recovers from her illness, and is told of Willoughby’s visit. Marianne, showing a maturity sadly missing only weeks earlier, tells her family that she could never have been happy with Willoughby, and dedicates herself to a monastic life of study and good work. Here the sound of ends being tied up becomes deafening. Edward arrives and reveals that Lucy has implausibly married his now wealthy younger brother, Robert. Edward and Elinor marry, and finally Marianne comes to terms with his advanced old age and marries Colonel Brandon.

Nobody reads Austen for the car chases and the suspense. We know what is going to happen, and little gets in the way of the long-awaited happy ever after. So the entertainment value of the novel, and in many ways in all of Austen’s work, resides not in incident but in the portraits of human nature she sketches. She is particularly good at catching the stifling nature of the lives of middle class women, unable to join the men in hunting, so condemned to sketching, music, reading (Marianne claims to have read everything in her family library, and anticipates reading six hours a day) and so bored. All they have to do is gossip, size up the value of people’s estates and income, and plan romances between the younger people.

Austen’s portraits of her minor characters is a particular strength of this novel. For example, Mrs Palmer, second daughter of Mrs Jennings, (Chapter 19)

“was several years younger than Lady Middleton, and totally unlike her in every respect. She was short and plump, had a very pretty face, and the finest expression of good humour in it that could possibly be. Her manners were by no means so elegant as her sister’s, but they were much more prepossessing. She came in with a smile, smiled all the time of her visit, except when she laughed, and smiled when she went away.”

Her wonderfully grumpy husband clearly has little or no respect for his kind wife; he:

“was a grave looking young man of five or six and twenty, with an air of more fashion and sense than his wife, but of less willingness to please or be pleased. He entered the room with a look of self-consequence, slightly bowed to the ladies, without speaking a word, and, after briefly surveying them and their apartments, took up a newspaper from the table, and continued to read it as long as he staid.

The interaction between Mr Palmer and his wife is comedy gold:

“Well! what a delightful room this is! I never saw anything so charming! Only think, Mama, how it is improved since I was here last! I always thought it such a sweet place, ma’am! (turning to Mrs. Dashwood) but you have made it so charming! Only look, sister, how delightful every thing is! How I should like such a house for myself! Should not you, Mr. Palmer?”

Mr. Palmer made her no answer, and did not even raise his eyes from the newspaper.

“Mr. Palmer does not hear me,” said she, laughing; “he never does sometimes. It is so ridiculous!”

When it is revealed that Mrs Palmer is pregnant (“in her situation“), Lady Middleton is shocked that such matters are openly discussed, and

“could no longer endure such a conversation, and therefore exerted herself to ask Mr. Palmer if there was any news in the paper.

“No, none at all,” he replied, and read on.”

Austen can at times be harsh with her characters. She creates some wonderful monsters that are never just caricatures. Lady Middleton is described as having “a kind of cold hearted selfishness” and Mrs. Ferrars was “a little, thin woman, upright, even to formality, in her figure, and serious, even to sourness, in her aspect. Her complexion was sallow; and her features small, without beauty, and naturally without expression; …She was not a woman of many words; for, unlike people in general, she proportioned them to the number of her ideas”.

The other obsession everyone seems to have is with money. One’s worth is weighed in savings and income to the nearest penny, and futures are decided on the basis of who has how much. Willoughby does not seriously consider marrying Marianne because of her relative poverty, but his wife has:

“Fifty thousand pounds, my dear. Did you ever see her? a smart, stylish girl they say, but not handsome. I remember her aunt very well, Biddy Henshawe; she married a very wealthy man. But the family are all rich together. Fifty thousand pounds! and by all accounts, it won’t come before it’s wanted; for they say he is all to pieces. No wonder! dashing about with his curricle and hunters! Well, it don’t signify talking; but when a young man, be who he will, comes and makes love to a pretty girl, and promises marriage, he has no business to fly off from his word only because he grows poor, and a richer girl is ready to have him.” (Chapter 30)

Writing about boredom without being boring is difficult. Austen uses her observations of how ridiculously people behave in these situations, drawing humour from the absurdity. Here for example the women are discussing the heights of their children,

“Harry Dashwood, and Lady Middleton’s second son William, who were nearly of the same age. Had both the children been there, the affair might have been determined too easily by measuring them at once; but as Harry only was present, it was all conjectural assertion on both sides; and every body had a right to be equally positive in their opinion, and to repeat it over and over again ……The two mothers, though each really convinced that her own son was the tallest, politely decided in favour of the other.

The two grandmothers, with not less partiality, but more sincerity, were equally earnest in support of their own descendant.

Lucy, who was hardly less anxious to please one parent than the other, thought the boys were both remarkably tall for their age, and could not conceive that there could be the smallest difference in the world between them; and Miss Steele, with yet greater address gave it, as fast as she could, in favour of each.

Elinor, having once delivered her opinion on William’s side, by which she offended Mrs. Ferrars and Fanny still more, did not see the necessity of enforcing it by any farther assertion; and Marianne, when called on for hers, offended them all, by declaring that she had no opinion to give, as she had never thought about it.”

Austen is also one of the greatest users of narrative point of view. Most of the novel’s events are shown through Elinor’s eyes – we know what she is thinking and feeling, but events elsewhere are effectively “off-screen”. When this perspective shifts, as it does occasionally, the reader knows to sit up and pay attention, such as in this scene where the point of view switches to that of Mrs Jennings, observing Elinor and the Colonel having a private conversation (Marianne is playing the piano making it hard to  overhear:

“on Elinor’s moving to the window …he followed her to it with a look of particular meaning, and conversed with her there for several minutes. The effect of his discourse on the lady too, could not escape her observation, for though she was too honourable to listen, and had even changed her seat, on purpose that she might NOT hear, to one close by the piano forte on which Marianne was playing, she could not keep herself from seeing that Elinor changed colour, attended with agitation, and was too intent on what he said to pursue her employment.”

She assumes there has been a proposal. Austen gives us a “what really happened” explanation very shortly thereafter. There is a similar and even more dramatic shift of perspective in the novel’s concluding chapters when Edward comes to tell Elinor he is a free man, and to propose to her.

“His errand at Barton, in fact, was a simple one. It was only to ask Elinor to marry him;—and considering that he was not altogether inexperienced in such a question, it might be strange that he should feel so uncomfortable in the present case as he really did, so much in need of encouragement and fresh air. How soon he had walked himself into the proper resolution, however, how soon an opportunity of exercising it occurred, in what manner he expressed himself, and how he was received, need not be particularly told. This only need be said;—that when they all sat down to table at four o’clock, about three hours after his arrival, he had secured his lady” (Chapter 49).

“need not be particularly told”! I beg to differ. There is another example of this turning aside at the last minute and leaving the fictional lovers a moment of intimate privacy at the point of engagement in Northanger Abbey. Perhaps this was a literary convention of the time, although if it was Austen ignores it in Pride and Prejudice for example.

The novel concludes with a wrapping up of events that the reader has expected from the start, albeit with a touch of regret for the loss of innocence in Marianne

“Instead of falling a sacrifice to an irresistible passion, as once she had fondly flattered herself with expecting,—instead of remaining even for ever with her mother, and finding her only pleasures in retirement and study, as afterwards in her more calm and sober judgment she had determined on,—she found herself at nineteen, submitting to new attachments, entering on new duties, placed in a new home, a wife, the mistress of a family, and the patroness of a village.”

Notice how almost all the verbs used to describe Marianne’s future are passive – she falls. remains, submits, and is placed in a new home. You have to wonder what element of choice she genuinely exercises, even though the answer is of course none, because she is fictional!

Two final thoughts on what is already an overly long review:

1. I can’t help but wonder what happens to poor forgotten younger sister Margaret?
2. You may have noticed that I have not illustrated this review with a copy of the novel’s book cover – this is because they were all universally awful!

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams, 1980

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the sequel to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, picks up immediately where Hitchhiker ends, with our hapless adventurers under attack from the Vogons, despite there being no tea. Having faced imminent death several times before, this causes them less concern that you would expect, and another last minute rescue leads to the party (Arthur Dent, earthling, Trillian, hitchhiker, Ford Prefect, researcher for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox, President of the Galaxy, and Marvin, the paranoid android) being separated once again.

Zaphod and Marvin are transported to the offices of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on Ursa Minor Beta. Zaphod is determined to trace down whoever left a message in his brain, even if it turns out to be himself. The Guide’s offices are taken prisoner and carried to Frogstar World B. FWB is a benighted planet whose economy has been ruined by a critical mass of shoe shops. The intention is to destroy Zaphod’s mind by sending him into the Total Perspective Vortex, a torture device designed to show people how small they are compared to the size of the Universe. Zaphod emerges unscathed because after all, he is Zaphod Beeblebrox.

Through some trickery with artificial universes, the party is reunited long enough for breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Marvin has to take the slow route, parking spaceships while waiting for the humans to arrive (or is it return?). The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is one of Adams’s most magnificent creations. I always loved the selectively bred cow that actually wants to be eaten:

“Four rare steaks please, and hurry, we haven’t eaten in five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years.”

The animal staggered to its feet. It gave a mellow gurgle.

‘A very wise choice, sir, if I may say so. very good…I’ll just nip off and shoot myself.” He turned and gave a friendly wink to Arthur. “Don’t worry, sir” he said, “I’ll be very humane”. 

There’s a very special, poetic aspect to the way the end of the universe is described by the show’s host, undercut by the Second Coming of the Prophet Zarquon. We also get to meet Hotblack Desiato at the restaurant, a rock star spending a year dead for tax purposes. After a further narrow escape from imminent death, this time by diving into a star to provide backing effects for a rock concert, which is to be honest a pretty rock and roll way to go, Zaphod and Trillian get to meet the man who runs the universe, while Arthur and Ford discover the origins of life on earth, and why everyone is so bloody useless (which is probably something to do with the fact that we are all descended from hairdressers and telephone sanitisers).

Adams’ commentary on modern life is razor sharp. I especially enjoyed the way the Golgafrinchams (Ark B) make leaves their currency to disprove the argument that money doesn’t grow on trees, and then tackle their galloping hyperinflation by burning down all the forests. Isn’t that austerity economics for you? I was slightly concerned that Restaurant wouldn’t sustain the brilliance of Hitchhiker, but I shouldn’t have worried. Yes there are some uneven patches – I never quite understand the point of Zarniwoop –  but the concepts are extraordinary and the jokes never miss. Marvin continues to be a paradoxical source of joy (“The first ten million years were the worst,” said Marvin, “and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million years I didn’t enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline”). I think it is best not to see ‘Restaurant’ as a sequel but more as the second half of ‘Hitchhiker’, best read one after the other with as short a break as possible. I am minded not to push on with the third, fourth and fifth books of the trilogy – I absolutely understand why they were written, but there is a certain polished perfection to these two novels that might be tarnished by anything that doesn’t meet their sustained genius. What do people think?

The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro, 1989

The Remains of the Day is a subtle, detailed portrait of a life of self-control, restraint and sacrifice. It is narrated by Mr Stevens, an ageing butler, who in 1956 takes a road trip to the West Country, to visit a former colleague, Mrs Dean, formerly Miss Kenton. In the course of his largely uneventful trip he reminisces freely about his long career of service. It has been a prestigious career at the height of his profession, or at least so he claims, but there has been a price to pay for this commitment to the demands of his role.

We are used to flawed narrators in modern literature, in which the details of the story emerge in the gaps between what the narrator tells us, and what we can perceive is actually happening. Here Ishiguro pushes the flawed narrator concept even further – Stevens’s memories are carefully layered to reveal a portrait of a man profoundly reserved and out of touch with his feelings, who comes to fear that he has wasted his life, and worse still will waste what remains to him. Several memories are revisited more than once in the course of the novel, with Stevens’s revisions and corrections revealing each time further insights into his decisions and thought processes.

The ostensible purpose of his road trip emerges over the course of the novel. Initially we are told that Stevens is planning to ask Miss Kenton to return to Darlington Hall, the scene of his long years of service to Lord Darlington, and more recently to an American employer, Mr Farraday. Darlington Hall was once a large prestigious establishment, but is now sadly reduced with large areas of the hall closed up, and only a skeleton staff. Stevens has received a letter from Miss Kenton which he chooses to interpret as indicating that she wants to return to her post as housekeeper. At this time we know little about their relationship, and Stevens only gives us unreliable glimpses of the past, but he slowly builds a picture of a warm friendship which could easily have become something more. Later he confesses that he may have read too much into her letter, and that his visit has more a more personal agenda. He mentions several other former acquaintances that he has lost touch with over the course of the years, and it becomes apparent that this trip is, for Stevens, (although he would never admit it) a last attempt to rekindle an old flame and recapture some of the former glories of his past. Stevens is an expert at self deception, and his explanations for his conduct – for example when he pretends to the villagers he meets when his car breaks down that he is a gentleman, rather than a servant – are always plausible but ultimately unconvincing.

In parallel with this personal account of his life, Stevens reveals the story of his former employer, Lord Darlington. Lord Darlington, it slowly becomes apparent, was a Nazi-sympathiser and supporter of appeasement, and after the outbreak of the second world war was publicly disgraced. Stevens avoids admitting that he was butler to Lord Darlington in the post-war present, even though privately in the confines of his personal narrative he defends his former employer as having been well-intentioned if ultimately misled by those he trusted. In one scene he recounts the story of his being asked by Lord Darlington to fire two servants because they are Jewish. He does so despite the passionate protests of Miss Kenton, taking the approach that it is not his role to question his employer’s decision.

The pace of the novel and the lack of incident in the present have led to some reviewers expressing frustration with this novel. Stevens’s buttoned-up, restrained personality, and his habit of expressing himself with precise, non-committal language that never expresses his true feelings. When his father dies for example, we can only tell he is upset because someone notices he is crying, something he would never admit to doing himself.

Certainly there are no car-crashes, chases or fist-fights in ‘The Remains of the Day’. If you are looking for dramatic incident, look elsewhere. This is a novel of subtle details, precisely chosen words, and delicate portraits. The reader needs to invest in the narrative – if they do so the rewards are worth it.

Did you enjoy ‘Remains’? Did you prefer the film, which was undoubtedly brilliant, but arguably placed too much emphasis on the romantic aspects of the novel? Or was the lack of incident a problem for you? Would really like to know what you thought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a trilogy in five parts, Douglas Adams, 1979

When the world is demolished to make way for an intergalatic bypass, Arthur Dent, one of only two survivors (and an alien, some dolphins, and two mice) embarks on an extraordinary journey to discover the answer to the great question of life, the universe and everything.

Re-reading ‘Hitchhiker’ after far too many years was a delight. It was like meeting an old friend for a few wonderful hours. Having grown up with the radio series, then the books, the television series, and finally the film, long stretches of the text were as familiar as a long lost childhood toy. Hitchhiker forms a central part of the cultural zeitgeist of the late 70’s and 80’s. Concepts such as the babelfish, the infinite improbability drive, Marvin the paranoid android (“I think you ought to know I’m feeling very depressed”) the restaurant at the end of the universe, and life the universe and everything, now have their own existences far beyond the confines of this novel.

There’s a wonderful rhythm and pace to this novel which it is hard to convey from short excerpts, which provides an excellent excuse to quote the extended section from the visit to Magrathea at the end of this review. Adams is a master at setting up jokes, and is never happier than when interrupting the plot development for a bit of silliness. The premise of the guide being allowed to explain the concepts and background to the reader, rather than using character exposition, also works really well and is one of the many pleasures of this fabulous novel.

If I were to describe Hitchhiker as a science fiction novel a proportion of potential readers would switch off. Sci-fi is perceived as a male dominated arena, where character is secondary to world-building. There are certainly a lot of scientific ideas in the novel, and much of it happens in outer space, but Hitchhiker defies simple categorisation. Above all it is funny, funny in wise and interesting ways. Adams had a way of looking at the world which made it fresh, and had fun with language, such as here, when Ford Prefect, the hitchhiker from Betelguese, warns Arthur Dent, (I can never see his name without repeating the silly joke ‘Dentarthurdent’) the novel’s permanently bemused everyman, that jumping into hyperspace feels like being drunk:

“What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?”

“Ask a glass of water!”

And here is a wonderful example of Adams’s silliness, combined with the ability to make the reader think, the extended quote promised earlier:

 “Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet. And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more. This is a complete record of its thoughts from the moment it began its life till the moment it ended it.

Ah … ! What’s happening? it thought.

Er, excuse me, who am I?

Hello? Why am I here? What’s my purpose in life?

What do I mean by who am I?

Calm down, get a grip now … oh! this is an interesting sensation, what is it? It’s a sort of … yawning, tingling sensation in my … my … well I suppose I’d better start finding names for things if I want to make any headway in what for the sake of what I shall call an argument I shall call the world, so let’s call it my stomach.

Good. Ooooh, it’s getting quite strong. And hey, what’s about this whistling roaring sound going past what I’m suddenly going to call my head? Perhaps I can call that … wind! Is that a good name? It’ll do … perhaps I can find a better name for it later when I’ve found out what it’s for. It must be something very important because there certainly seems to be a hell of a lot of it. Hey! What’s this thing? This … let’s call it a tail – yeah, tail. Hey! I can can really thrash it about pretty good can’t I? Wow! Wow! That feels great! Doesn’t seem to achieve very much but I’ll probably find out what it’s for later on. Now – have I built up any coherent picture of things yet?

No.

Never mind, hey, this is really exciting, so much to find out about, so much to look forward to, I’m quite dizzy with anticipation …

Or is it the wind? There really is a lot of that now isn’t it? And wow! Hey! What’s this thing suddenly coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like … ow … ound … round … ground! That’s it! That’s a good name – ground!

I wonder if it will be friends with me?

And the rest, after a sudden wet thud, was silence.

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.”

(Gloriously, this quote in Goodreads has the following tags: petunias, sperm-whale).

If you haven’t read Hitchhiker’s by now, chances are you probably won’t, but I am still going to recommend you do anyway. It will only take you an afternoon, at most, and if you hate it then what have you lost? If you love it just a small fraction as much as I and so many other people do, you’re welcome.

Farewell, My Lovely, by Raymond Chandler, 1940

I’ve written previously on this blog about my fan-boy admiration of Chandler’s prose. His flair for dramatic imagery is really unsurpassed in the detective fiction genre. People have tried to copy it, but never achieved the same vividly imaginative description.
Plot is in many ways secondary in these novels, which is surprising given that in most detective fiction whodunit is the central question. For Chandler the journey is more important than the destination, and when we arrive at the novel’s denouement the reveal can be a little anti-climactic.

‘Farewell My Lovely’ has a typically byzantine plot, where it is really easy for the reader to get lost as to what is happening, even after several rereads. (Where I say ‘the reader’ I am thinking of one specific reader in particular, me – other people may not have these issues. See what you think)

Marlowe is investigating a missing person’s case when he crosses the path of the novel’s anti-hero, Moose Malloy. Malloy is a prodigiously large man, and has just got out of prison after serving an eight years sentence. He is looking for his former girlfriend, Velma. Malloy is slow on the up take, but extremely persistent. In the course of a visit to a club where Velma once worked, Malloy casually kills the owner. Having witnessed the killing, Marlowe decides to track down Velma.

He locates the widow of the nightclub’s former owner but this seems a dead end as she claims Velma is dead. That evening Marlowe picks up another case in which he is asked to act as a bodyguard for a man delivering a ransom for some stolen jewellery. The reader is hardly surprised when this payment goes badly wrong, and while Marlowe escapes with a bump on the head, his client, Lindsay Marriott, is murdered.

Anne Riordan, daughter of a former chief of police, finds the coshed Marlowe, and decides to help him with his investigation. She is not the typical sidekick – Marlowe doesn’t seem to welcome her help – but she races ahead with the case, finding out that the jewellery that was to be ransomed belonged to a Mrs Grayle, the young wife of a wealthy industrialist. Prompted by Anne, Marlowe visits Mrs. Grayle. There is an immediate spark between them, and after making out they agree to go on a date at a club owned by the local kingpin, Laird Brunette. Experienced detective fiction readers will be twitching at this point, knowing that there is more to both Mrs Grayle and Laird than meets the eye, but the speed of the action is such that there is little time to contemplate this development before Marlowe is off pursuing another red herring.

While investigating Marriott’s possessions, Marlowe finds some cannabis cigarettes, and inside these the business cards of a psychotherapist, as we would now call him, called Amthor. Marlowe begins to formulate an idea that Amthor identified his clients as potential victims, and then passed their details to Marriott, who gets to know them, sets up the robbery, and then manages the payment of the ransom. Confronting Amthor turns out to be a big mistake, as Marlowe is beaten up by first his bodyguard and then two local policemen on Amthor’s payroll, then kept drugged in a private hospital run by the sinister Dr. Sonderborg. He escapes, but on the way out he sees Malloy in another room. Marlowe subsequently works out that Malloy may now be hiding out on a gambling boat anchored beyond the city’s three-mile limit, and run by Brunette Laird, who we have met before.

The novel now moves swiftly to a conclusion. In a tense scene Marlowe sneaks on board the gambling boat, before the final confrontation between Malloy, such a strong presence in the novel despite only the briefest of appearances, Marlowe, and the ghosts of the past.

As was often the case with Chandler’s novels, ‘Farewell my Lovely’ is something of a Frankenstein’s monster in which earlier short stories are welded together to create the one narrative. If you look hard for the joints you can find them, but the fact that detectives will often pursue several cases at once gives this a plausibility it might otherwise lack. But as I have said earlier, you shouldn’t read Chandler for the plot. He is above all a superb stylist.

“The eighty-five cent dinner tasted like a discarded mail bag and was served to me by a waiter who looked as if he would slug me for a quarter, cut my throat for six bits and bury me at sea in a barrel of concrete for a dollar and a half, plus sales tax.”

“She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.”

“1644 West 54th Place was a dried-out brown house with a dried-out brown lawn in front of it. There was a large bare patch around a tough-looking palm tree. On the porch stood one lonely wooden rocker, and the afternoon breeze made the unpruned shoots of last year’s poinsettias tap-tap against the cracked stucco wall. A line of stiff yellowish half-washed clothes jittered on a rusty wire in the side yard.”

Just occasionally Chandler goes over the top – “The wet air was as cold as the ashes of love.” – but you feel happy to overlook this given the percentage of hits to misses. But it is as king of the simile that Chandler reigns supreme:

“Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.”

and

“It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window” (a line that can still make me laugh out loud).

Having said all that, I can’t finish this review without mentioning the racism that is scattered throughout this novel. It’s painful to read, and hard to separate out the racism of 1940’s America which is I am sure being accurately portrayed, and the racist attitudes of the author. I don’t think it fatally damages the novel as a whole, but it does a good job at trying. A politically correct Philip Marlowe would be an abomination, agreed, but there is something about the casual way that racist terms are used that is distasteful.

Crome Yellow, by Aldous Huxley, 1921

I honestly don’t enjoy writing critical reviews, I really don’t. Why would I go out of my way to read disappointing, dated, shallow novels that have very little to recommend them? But there’s little point me reviewing a novel dishonestly is there, emphasising the positive and glossing over the weaker points simply to present a sunnier face to the world? So when I say ‘Crome Yellow’ was dull and largely pointless I take no pleasure in doing so.

So what happens? Very little. Perhaps that’s the point? Aspiring writer Denis Stone goes to stay for the summer with a group of guests at Crome, a country house that gives the novel its name. His hosts are Henry Wimbush and his wife Priscilla. Wimbush is an amateur historian; Priscilla has a gambling problem and is a believer in astrology and the paranormal. A cast of eccentrics and thinly disguised portraits of Huxley’s acquaintances people the rest of the house, including younger guests who provide romantic interest for one another if not the reader. No-one has a real job, saving perhaps the local priest who pines for the Second Coming. Chapters are filled with readings from Sir Henry’s history of Crome, the priest’s sermons, and long walks on the terrace. The hours crawl by. A Bank Holiday fair finally provides a climax of sorts to the novel, which then ends abruptly and disappointingly.

This was Huxley’s first novel, and it was well received. It set him on the career path which led to ‘Brave New World’. So I am clearly missing something. The question is, what?

First there is the eternal fascination of the Country House novel. Crome Yellow is set in a time – the early 1920’s – when the world had just been turned upside down by the Great War. While the war is mentioned, no-one seems to have participated, nor been affected, when in reality houses like Crome would have lost their heirs, the staff would have been depleted, and the local village would have undoubtedly lost many men. The war hasn’t led to anyone questioning their place in society or the future of the country.  There’s a useful definition of the country house novel in the Wikipedia entry for ‘Crome Yellow’. 

“a diverse group of characters descend upon an estate to leech off the host. They spend most of their time eating, drinking, and holding forth on their personal intellectual conceits. There is little plot development.”

Obviously that’s not a particularly flattering description of this remarkably robust genre, but I think it is accurate. Which begs the question – if not much happens in country house novels, why have they proven so popular, particularly now that the world they describe has long since passed away? That’s probably a question for another post.

If his characters are impervious to the threats to their status, Huxley himself anticipates the passing of the world he describes:

“Ten years more of the hard times and Gobley (another country house like Crome) with all its peers, will be deserted and decaying. Fifty years, and the countryside will know the old landmarks no more”. 

The country house setting therefore can act as a metaphor for the country as a whole. A typical feature of this world is that it is supported by an army of almost invisible servants. At the opening of Chapter 30 the narrator tells us that “Denis had been called“. Note the use of the passive voice – there is no indication of who had done the calling (that is to say, had told him it was time to get up for the breakfast that mysteriously appears prepared each morning). He is barely aware that his whole existence depends on people whose identity he hardly acknowledges. No wonder therefore that this world will not outlast the next twenty years or so, even if writers will remain fascinated with country houses long into the following century.

Most readers will be unlikely to miss the foreshadowing of ‘Brave New World’ in a couple of brief references in this novel. One character pontificates about a generation of the future that will “take the place of Nature’s hideous system. In vast state incubators, rows upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with the population it requires. The family system will disappear; society, sapped at its very base, will have to find new foundations; and Eros, beautifully and irresponsibly free, will flit like a gay butterfly from flower to flower through a sunlit world.” (28)

and later about the stratification of society:

“in the Rational State ….human beings will be separated out into distinct species, not according to the colour of their eyes or the shape of their skulls, but according to the qualities of their mind and temperament. “(129)

Huxley was to return to these ideas a decade later in Brave New World which suggests it was this rather than the petty interests of his younger characters that really caught his interest when developing this novel.

 

I Like it Here by Kingsley Amis, 1958

As a general rule every Kingsley Amis novel features a central protagonist that is more or less Kingsley Amis. Once you come to terms with that fact it makes the inevitable disappointment easier to bear. ‘I Like it Here’ is no exception. Garnet Bowen is an author making a living from selling articles and reviews. He has two sons and a daughter; he considers himself progressive, despite his open xenophobia; he is permanently priapic, and considers fidelity to his wife a vaguely optional extra. He is unpleasant, boorish, boring, and unlikeable, and the fact that we are supposed to find him roguish, charming, witty and loveable makes it all the worse. Bowen fears everything foreign, especially the thought of making a trip abroad. This is the central conceit of ‘I Like it Here‘. Hilarious, no?

Bear in mind that this novel was written in the late 1950’s, when mass market tourism had yet to take off, and most British men had only been to Europe to kill people. Bowen was involved in the Second World War but seems to have spent it largely getting into traffic accidents that have left him reluctant to get behind the wheel of a car again – his wife does all the family driving. He is persuaded to take his wife and family to Portugal by a literary editor with a commission and he tentative promise of a job on his return. He is charged with finding out whether the author of a book submitted to a publisher is by a famous reclusive writer. This puzzle forms the narrative heart of the novel, but that is saying little – the mystery just isn’t that interesting. We don’t care either way.

The story arc many readers will expect when Bowen and family eventually set off for Portugal is for him to be to gradually won over by the hidden charms of the country and its people. Amis anticipates this expectation:

“Bowen looked nervously about for peasants. It would be unendurable if they all turned out to be full of instinctive wisdom and natural good manners and unself-conscious grace and a deep, articulate understanding of death”

Fortunately Amis resists this predictable approach – Portugal just isn’t that charming, and Amis/Bowen really genuinely doesn’t like foreigners and the foreign. The fact that Portugal was at the time experiencing the long reign of a quasi-Fascist dictatorship of Antonio Salazar, only finally shaken off by the Carnation revolution of 1974, only makes matters worse.

This is a lazy novel. A strange requirement of winning the Somerset Maugham award was that Amis had to travel abroad for three months. Amis described his decision to spend his time in Portugal as a “deportation order”. To create this novel all he then did was to transcribe his experiences, and add the authorship mystery as a flimsy narrative filler. The gaps between the two component parts are pretty obvious once you know what you are looking for, and explain the lethargic feel of long stretches of aimless descriptions.

Even Amis disliked the book. In the 1975 Paris Review he wrote

“It was written partly out of bad motives… I really cobbled it together out of straightforwardly autobiographical experiences in Portugal, with a kind of mystery story perfunctorily imposed on that. The critics didn’t like it, and I don’t blame them really…it’s really a very slipshod, lopsided piece of work.”

Are there any redeeming features in the novel? It is clear that Amis was not a fan of the Salazar regime. He disguises his mild xenophobia behind a discussion of the merits of travel – the novel’s title is deliberately ambiguous, in that the ‘Here’ which Bowen likes could be either the UK, (specifically England) at the start of the novel, or eventually it could be Portugal, once Bowen comes to terms with its overall foreign-ness. In fact he spends most of his time with ex-pats, and encounters very few Portuguese people during his stay. Sadly that’s about it. Apart of the mess that is the plot, Amis is still polishing his ability to turn a phrase, and the idiosyncrasies of character that in ‘Lucky Jim’ were very funny, here, once repeated, fall flat.