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Trilby

May 25, 2016 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, study resources, plot, and web links

Trilby was first published in serialised form in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in seven monthly instalments beginning January 1894. As was common practice at that time, each episodes carried illustrations featuring key figures and moments in the story. These were produced by the author himself, since George du Maurier was primarily a cartoonist and illustrator, even though he is best remembered today as the author of this novel, which he wrote at the suggestion of his friend Henry James.

The book was an immense international success when it appeared, and it led to a version as a play (by Paul Potter) to various spoofs and parodies, and of course to the popularity of the trilby hat, which was a feature of the theatrical production. There were several later film versions of the story produced between 1914 and 1954 – one of which is featured below. George du Maurier was the grandfather of the English romantic novelist Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989).

Trilby – critical commentary

Historical background

In 1848 Alexander Dumas published The Lady of the Camellias (La Dame aux camelias) – a novel that established the fashion for stories set in the bohemian world of the demi-mondaine – a woman who trades her sexual favours in exchange for living in style. Dumas’s heroine has the additional interest that she is suffering from tuberculosis. The novel was immediately followed in 1852 by a very successful stage adaptation, and this in its turn was used as the basis for Giuseppi Verdi’s opera La Traviata.

Around the same time Henri Murger wrote his Scenes from Bohemian Life (Scenes de la vie de bohème) a loosely related collection of stories which originally appeared in the literary magazine Le Corsaire, all of them set in the Latin Quarter of Paris . They became known collectively under the title La Vie Bohème. These stories too gave rise to the romantic and sentimental plot for operas such as Puccini’s La bohème (1896) and various other adaptations for the stage and (later) the cinema.

Bohemia

“To be young, to be fond of pleasure, to care nothing for worldly prosperity, to scorn mere respectability, and to rebel against rigid rule – these are the qualities which alone may be regarded as essential to constitute the Bohemian.” That’s how the Westminster Review, a British journal, defined Bohemianism in 1862.

These literary predecessors to Trilby were second rate inventions, full of unrealistic cliches of artistic life – people with artistic aspirations living in cheerful poverty; whores with hearts of gold; sentimental love attachments, and eternal friendships sworn between men. George du Maurier featured all of these in Trilby, and added plenty more besides.

And yet the three principal males in Trilby – Taffy, the Laird, and Little Billee – are anything but genuine bohemians. They all have private incomes, they dine in the best restaurants, and they dress like City stockbrokers. They form a vaguely homo-erotic trio who accept Trilby on her boyish, de-sexualised arrival, but are scandalised (Billee in particular) when it is revealed that Trilby is working as an artist’s model, posing in the nude.

Du Maurier’s novel is an appalling production as a literary artefact. It is full of stock characters, poor construction, bad plotting, digressions and irrelevancies, and a laboured literary style that groans under the effort of fulfilling the demands of the monthly instalment.

But like other works in the genre of Gothic horror – Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde (1886), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), and Dracula (1897) du Maurier had a dramatic trump card that lifted a badly-written novel into the realms of the first modern best-sellers. That trump card was a psychological angle to the story that resonates beyond its historical milieu – the transformative power of hypnotism.

Hypnotism

Hypnosis derives from mesmerism, popularised by the German physician Franz Mesmer in the early nineteenth century. By the end of the century public demonstrations were commonly staged, and it is worth noting that some of the earliest researches into psycho-analysis (Freud and Charcot in 1885) used hypnosis as an attempt to access what we now call the unconscious mind.

The central character and villain Svengali uses hypnotic techniques, first of all to cure a painful condition of the eyes from which Trilby is suffering. At this point in the narrative she dislikes him intensely, and shortly afterwards she leaves Paris and the plot of the novel. In the five years that follow, she makes her way back to Paris and Svengali, where he hypnotises her again in order to teach her singing. At the same time he also makes her virtually his wife.

It is significant (for this novel) that an alternative name for mesmerism was ‘animal magnetism’. Trilby by the latter part of the novel has been living with Svengali in the intervening five years as his musical and life companion and is utterly devoted to him. The only logical explanation for this change in her attitude is that she is under his persuasive influence.

Svengali has hypnotised her into loving him – at the same time as teaching her to sing . He has done this with the use of his suggestively symbolic ‘little flexible flageolet’. Du Maurier seems to be unaware that a flageolet, apart from its metaphoric male counterpart, is anything but flexible.

The sexual element

Du Maurier also seems to be completely uncertain about his heroine – presenting her first as an androgynous boy-like figure, then as the whore with a heart of gold. In some passages Trilby is aware that her reputation is compromised, yet in others the narrative (which is firmly in the voice of its author) gives the impression that it is completely unblemished. However, it has to be said that given the social and literary conventions of the time, nobody would have published a novel that featured as its heroine a prostitute, heart of gold or not

And although it remains unacknowledged, that is what Trilby is. She is from a poor background with alcoholic parents, and she has been molested by an elderly friend of the family. She lives in the louche Latin Quarter of Paris, and poses in the nude as an ‘artists model’ and works occasionally a laundress. These are all what in the late nineteenth century were cyphers for prostitution.

She offers to live with Billee as his mistress because she loves him – but does not think she ought to marry him. She realises that her social reputation is tainted – and she feels shame about the ‘things’ she has done. She writes to Sandy:

And I have done dreadful things besides, as you must know, as all the Quartier knows. Baratier and Besson, but not Durian, though people think so. Nobody else I swear – except old Monsieur Penque at the beginning, who was mamma’s friend. It makes me almost die of shame and misery to think of it: for that’s not like sitting I knew how wrong it was all along – and there’s no excuse for me, none.

The implication is that she has had sexual relations with these artists, as well as posing nude for them. Later in the narrative she claims she ‘could never be fond of [Svengali] in the way he wished … I used to try and do all I could – be a daughter to him, as I couldn’t be anything else’.

Du Maurier is trying to redeem his heroine, but he seems to be struggling with his own ambivalences and contradictions, because in the same speech Trilby goes on to reveal ‘I always had the best of everything. He insisted on that … as soon as I felt uneasy about things … he would say “Dors, ma mignonne” and I would sleep at once – for hours, I think – and wake up, oh, so tired! and find him kneeling by me’.

The clear implication is that Svengali puts Trilby into a hypnotic trance and has sex with her – which accounts for her tiredness on waking. Yet du Maurier seems hardly aware of these inferences – because he no doubt wished to present his heroine as untainted.

Anti-semitism

Even the most enthusiastic reader will not fail to notice that the characterisation of Svengali is an almost grotesque example of anti-Semitism on du Maurier’s part. Svengali lives off the generosity of his relatives somewhere in Austria, and du Maurier describes him quite uncompromisingly (and redundantly) as an ‘Oriental Semite Hebrew Jew’. Svengali is physically filthy, with long hair, a big nose, and dirty fingernails. He borrows money that he does not repay, and he speaks in a (well-rendered) parody of Judeo-Teutonic speech. Unlike the three upright British heroes of the novel, he is licentious and deceitful too – since he has a wife and children whom he has abandoned. He has ‘special skills’ (his musical ability) as well as being a master of occult practices (hypnotism) that give him mastery over Anglo-Saxon maidens such as Trilby. He is also filled with malevolent intent towards all and sundry:

Svengali walking up and down the earth seeking whom he might cheat, betray, exploit, borrow money from, make brutal fun of, bully if he dare, cringe to if he must – man, woman, child or dog

As an intrusive and more-or-less first person narrator, du Maurier puts no distance between himself and the relentless prejudice manifest towards this character. And to underscore the fact that his attitude is racially motivated (rather than the criticism of an individual) he demonstrates the same attitude to the minor character of Mimi la Salope – Svengali’s earlier pupil, who is also Jewish:

she went to see him in his garret, and he played to her, and leered and ogled, and flashed his bold, black, beady Jew’s eyes into hers, and she straightaway mentally prostrated herself in reverence and adoration before this dazzling specimen of her race. So that her sordid, mercenary little gutter-draggled soul was filled with the sight and sound of him, as of a lordly, godlike, shawm-playing, cymbal-banging hero and prophet of the Lord God of Israel-David and Saul in one!

Trilby – study resources

Trilby – Oxford World Classics – Amazon UK

Trilby – Oxford World Classics – Amazon US

Trilby and Other Works – Kindle – Amazon UK

Trilby and Other Works – Kindle – Amazon US

Trilby – film version

John Barrymore in 1931 film adaptation

Directed by Archie Mayo. Screenplay by J. Grubb Alexander. Starring John Barrymore (Svengali), Marian Marsh (Trilby O’Farrell), Donald Crisp (the Laird), Bramwell Fletcher (Little Billee), Louis Alberni (Gecko), Filmed at Warner Brothers Studios, California, USA.

Trilby – chapter summaries

Part First In a bohemian studio in Paris, the pianist Svengali meets artist’s model Trilby, who sings out of tune. Trilby is from drunken Irish-Scottish parents, but is a simple boyish soul who enjoys the company of English gentlemen.

Part Second The unscrupulous and dirty Svengali hypnotises Trilby to cure the pain in her eyes. Little Billee is teased by fellow students at Studio Carrel, but is a good artist. Trilby acts as a housekeeper and friend to three English friends. Svengali makes strenuous amorous advances to her.

Part Third Trilby poses in the nude at Carrel’s studio, which shocks Little Billee. She is upset and decides to give up modelling. Preparations are made for a Christmas feast. Little Billee feels self-righteous after tending a drunken fellow lodger.

Part Fourth A rowdy Christmas dinner takes place at the studio. Little Billee gets drunk and asks Trilby to marry him. In the new year Billee’s mother Mrs Bagot arrives to contest the engagement. Trilby agrees not to marry Billee and leaves Paris with her brother, who dies shortly afterwards. Billee falls ill with the disappointment. He goes back to live in England, and later finds fame as a painter, but he does not recover the power of feeling.

Part Fifth Taffy and the Laird leave Paris and wander around Europe. Five years later they meet Billee who has become successful, but has tired of being taken up by the rich and famous. Billee takes them to a house party where they overhear rapturous accounts of Trilby’s singing voice. Billee goes to Devon where he is smitten by his sister’s friend Alice. He confides his feelings to her pet dog, as well as explaining his anti-religious beliefs.

Part Sixth Taffy, the Laird, and Billee are back in Paris. They visit their old studio. They attend Trilby’s Paris debut, where she astonishes everyone with the artistry of her singing. Billee’s capacity for feeling is restored, but he is consumed by jealousy. Taffy reveals to him that he too once proposed to Trilby.

Part Seventh Next day the three friends see Trilby with Svengali passing in a carriage, but she ignores them all. Svengali assaults Billee, but when a duel is proposed he doesn’t respond. In London Svengali beats Trilby, quarrels with Gecko, and is stabbed by him. Trilby fails to sing at her London debut; Svengali has a heart attack; and Gecko is arrested. Trilby is ill; she denies ever singing; and she recounts her story of the ‘lost’ five years when Svengali rescued her.

Part Eighth Svengali dies, and Trilby goes into physical decline. Mrs Bagot forgives and befriends Trilby, who prepares for her death. On receiving a photograph of Svengali, Trilby goes into a trance and recovers her singing voice for the last time, then dies. Many years later, following Billee’s death, Taffy is in Paris on his honeymoon with Billee’s sister. He meets Gecko, who reveals how Svengali hypnotised Trilby into a creature acting under his own will.

Trilby – principal characters

Talbot Wynne (Taffy)	an ex-soldier and Yorkshireman
Alexander McAlister (Sandy, the Laird)	a Scot and student of painting
William Bagot (Little Billee)	a young English art student
Mrs Bagot	Billee’s mother
Svengali	a Jewish pianist and hypnotist
Gecko	a violin player (Polish?)
Trilby O’Ferrall	a tall artist’s model
Jeannot	Trilby’s little brother
Durian	a sculptor

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Twentieth Century Neglected Classics

October 2, 2009 by Roy Johnson

recommended lesser-known novels

This is a selection of neglected classics – lesser-known novels from the twentieth century. Great writers such as James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Virginia Woolf, and D.H.Lawrence are covered elsewhere on this site. Here you might find some pleasant surprises.

Le Grand Meaulnes (1913) Alain Fournier’s semi-autobiographical gem (usually translated into English as The Lost Domain) is an idyllic evocation of boyhood and adolescence. It’s a novel of teenage self-discovery and enormous charm. Two schoolboys stumble upon a semi-mythical realm set deep in the French countryside and fall in love with a girl who they can never later re-trace. This is a lyrical and atmospheric novel which evokes a fin de siécle innocence and romanticism which would be wiped out by the first world war – which was hovering just around the corner and cost Fournier his life fighting on the Meuse in 1914.
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We (1920) Yevgeny Zamyatin’s tale is a very original and futuristic dystopia which prophesies Stalinism and the failure of the revolution to be truly revolutionary. It is set in a totally regulated society where people are known by numbers, and in which two lovers embody irrational urges towards which the state is hostile. It’s written in a dazzlingly poetic and experimental style, influenced by the early developments of Russian modernism. The novel was reviewed by George Orwell and heavily ‘influenced’ his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. This is the original, and you”ll be pleased to discover that it’s far superior.
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Manhattan Transfer (1925) John dos Passos is an unjustly neglected master of American experimental realism from the modernist period. He writes in a manner which combines multiple characters and perspectives, fragmented narratives running in parallel, stream-of-consciousness passages, the insertion of contemporary newspaper reports, potted biographies, popular songs, flash-backs and flash-forwards. The result is an expressionistic mosaic which captures the speed and chaos of modern life. His story is always one of ordinary working people struggling to make a living and a life in the modern city, which is under the control of monopoly capitalists. And his setting is almost always the city – New York City. Start with Manhattan Transfer, which is less demanding and more coherent. If you like that, move on to his chef d’oeuvre USA, which is three novels rolled into one.
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Auto da Fe (1935) Elias Canetti’s only novel is the story of Peter Kien, a distinguished scholar and obsessive bibliophile who ends up setting fire to his own library. The novel was inspired by the burning of the Palace of Justice in Vienna in 1927, and is partly a parable of Nazi book burning. The figure of Kien is loosely based on Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher who was famous for his invariable habits. Kien deviates from his own spartan routines with disastrous results. Canetti wrote the novel when he was only twenty-five, and wrote little else except memoirs until he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1981.
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Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) Nathaniel West’s novel concerns a newspaper columnist who deals with the problem letters from readers – most of them bordering on the humanly tragic. He innocently and for the best motives begins to take them seriously, and tries to help the people who send them. He is destroyed as a result. West is a much underrated master of black comedy. The Day of the Locust (1939) is his greatest novel – a searing critique of the movie business in which West briefly worked. It focuses on the lonely misfits and cranks drawn by Hollywood and the American Dream, and ends in an apocalyptic frenzy of hatred, self-destruction, and the burning of Los Angeles. Both novels, plus A Cool Million and The Dream Life of Balso Snell in one volume.
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Darkness at Noon (1940) Arthur Koestler’s novel is one of the classics capturing all the madness and tyranny of the Stalinist purges in the 1930s. Comrade Rubashov, an old Bolshevik, is accused of betraying the State he helped to create. The novel follows his physical and psychological torture until he finally agrees to make a false confession against himself, and following a completely corrupt show trial he is executed as a traitor. Grim; not for the faint-hearted; and politically spot-on in the light of everything we have learned since. It profits from being dramatically concentrated in time and place on Rubashov in his prison cell, but for a more wide-ranging novel which shows the madness of stalinism in a much wider social perspective, try Victor Serge’s The Case of Comrade Tulayev.
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The Master and Margarita (1940/1973) Mikhail Bulgakov’s greatest novel is a wonderful mixture of realism and fantasy which offers a satirical view of communist Russia. The story involves the arrival of the Devil into Moscow, causing all sort of comic mischief. This story is interspersed with chapters dealing with Pontius Pilate and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, plus other sections related to an artist and his relationships with his art and his lover. All three layers of the story are blended into one with spellbinding imaginative force. Bulgakov burnt the manuscript of his book in despair when being persecuted under the Stalinist tyranny. Fortunately, he lived just long enough to re-write it.
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Invisible Man (1952) Ralph Ellison’s powerful novel is the search of an unnamed black American man for his own identity in a society which denies it to him at every turn. It is told with a combination of deadly seriousness and great comic panache. The hero is presented with or stumbles into a range of roles – from Uncle Tom, through political activist, to Superstud and Black Muslim. He uncovers the racism and existential inauthenticity in all of them, and in the end ‘goes Underground’ as a form of escape. This novel is profound, beautifully written, and very funny. It’s a great shame Ralph Ellison wrote so little else.
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The Lost Steps (1953) Alejo Carpentier’s novel is a story told twice. A disillusioned north-American musicologist flees his empty existence in New York City. He takes a journey with his mistress to one of the few remaining areas of the world not yet touched by civilization – the upper reaches of a great South American river. The novel describes his search, his adventures, the revival of his creative powers, and the remarkable decision he makes in a village that seems to be truly outside history. Wonderful evocations of Latin America from the writer who founded the idea of ‘Magical Realism’.
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The Tin Drum (1956) This was Günter Grass’s first novel, and it is still probably his best. In it, he makes a brave and imaginative attempt to come to terms with the German experience between 1930 and 1950. Set in Danzig where Grass grew up, it starts with the rise of fascism, goes through the horrors of WWII, and ends just after the dubious Economic Miracle of the post-war years. The ambiguous hero is a dwarf who is pathologically attached to his toy drum, who wills himself not to grow, and whose voice can shatter glass. This is a comic yet disturbing fantasy which combines elements of Grass’s own biography with notions of collective and individual responsibility for German war guilt. Despite his later fame and productivity (plus the Nobel Prize in 1999) this novel will be due for renewed critical examination, following Grass’s recent confession that he enlisted in the Waffen-SS during the war.
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Dr Zhivago (1957) Boris Pasternak’s novel is a sprawling epic of the Russian revolution, a passionate love story, and a memorable portrait of a doctor-poet caught up in the merciless wheels of history. Zhivago seeks to do good and live with simple dignity, but his efforts are thwarted by war, a revolution in which he is forced to participate, and his love affair with Lara, who is married to a Bolshevik general. Pasternak received the Nobel Prize for this novel in 1958, but was forced to refuse it by the Soviet authorities at the time. Some commentators have criticised the novel for being rather traditional in its used of drama and suspense – but these features are precisely what gives it such appeal for general readers.
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Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)
Jean Rhys’ novel is a rare case of a ‘prequel’ which is as interesting, well written, and as original as the work to which it refers. This is the story of Mr Rochester’s first wife (before Jane Eyre) and how he came to bring her from the West Indies. It’s a vivid evocation of the Caribbean; a psychologically convincing portrait of a woman’s identity under threat from the twin forces of male dominance and enforced deracination; and a wonderfully lyrical narrative, full of poetic imagery and brooding force. This book re-established Jean Rhys’s reputation after decades of neglect.
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One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) Gabriel Garcia Marquez is the novelist who really put ‘magical realism’ on the world literary map. This is a sprawling epic which conveys the essence of Latin America via the saga of the Buendia family that mirrors the history of Colombia. Like many of his works, it is set in the fictional town of Macondo, a place much like García Márquez’s native Aracataca. Mixing realism and fantasy, the novel is both the story of the decay of the town and an ironic epic of human experience. Readers should expect levitating priests, time which goes backwards, and plagues of flowers and civic forgetfulness. Marquez has gone on to write many more novels, but this one remains his greatest.
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The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1969) This work by Heinrich Böll is a short, dramatic novel loosely based on the Baader-Meinhof affair. It is Böll’s scathing critique of tabloid journalism at its worst and Germany’s panic-driven anti-terrorist laws. A young woman is arrested for harbouring her lover, a suspected terrorist, who is in fact an army deserter. She is harassed by the police and a particularly obnoxious reporter. When he confronts her at her mother’s funeral she agrees to give him her story; but when they meet up and he suggests they have sex, she shoots him instead. Böll is a left-wing Catholic in the mould of Graham Greene. This is an intelligent and sensitive response to the moral outcry over European ‘terrorism’ which began in the late 1960s.
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The Golden Gate (1989) Vikram Seth’s is a novel of modern life, written in verse , and set in California. It’s very charming, yet deals with important the fundamentals of life such as birth, friendship, love, and death. It was inspired by Pushkin’s novel in sonnet form, Eugene Onegin, and it contains some wonderfully poetic images and stunning rhymes. It’s a celebration of everyday existence, with strong ecological sympathies and an amazing variety of domestic pets. Guaranteed to please. Don’t let the idea of a novel in verse put you off: it’s a gem, and a linguistic treat. The text is presented, like Pushkin’s masterpiece, as one sonnet on each page. Every one is a self-contained work of art
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The Conservationist (1990) Nadine Gordimer has had a long and distinguished career as a novelist, but this has possibly emerged as her greatest work. A white South-African businessman keeps a farm in the country which he visits at weekends. He tries to do The Right Thing ecologically but cannot, because he does not truly live there. The Africans who work for him eventually emerge as the true inheritors of the earth. Gordimer charts the problems of a society divided by racism, colonialism, class, and political history. She expresses very eloquently the relationship between people and land. Fluent writing, great style, and lots of political commitment, but wrapped up in a non-judgemental way.
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Twentieth Century Russian Novels

October 2, 2009 by Roy Johnson

Two on a Tower

October 13, 2017 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, study guide, commentary, further reading, web links

Two on a Tower was first published by Sampson Low, London, in three volumes in 1882. it was written between two of Thomas Hardy’s major novels – The Return of the Native in 1878 and arguably his greatest work The Mayor of Casterbridge in 1886 – though it has to be said that he produced a number of other minor works around this time, such as The Trumpet Major (1880) and A Laodicean (1881). Hardy called the novel a ‘romance and a fantasy’, but there seem no valid reasons why it should not be judged by the same criteria as those used to assess his other works.

Two on a Tower – commentary

The sensation novel

The sensation novel was a literary genre developed in the mid nineteenth century by writers such as Wilkie Collins and Mary Elizabeth Braddon. They created plots that were designed to ‘jolt the reader’ (John Sutherland’s term) with elements of secret marriages, forged wills, bigamy, blackmail, murder, concealed identities, and other elements inherited from the late eighteenth-century Gothic – such as fraud, theft, kidnapping, and incarceration.

Thomas Hardy is not normally regarded as a novelist of the ‘sensationalist’ school, but there are certainly many elements of its literary devices in his work. Two on a Tower features several plot devices that span the melodrama and the sensation novel.

The relationship between the protagonist Swithin and Lady Viviette Constantine is presented as ‘peculiar’ because of the age difference and the apparent disparity in their status. Yet she is only eight years older than him; she has married into her position of Lady Constantine; and he is the son of a clergyman. They are not so far apart socially.

This age difference might seem inconsequential to readers today – but in the late nineteenth century it was considered somewhat risque to have a mature (and formerly married) woman making what are clearly sexual overtures to a young male.

The sudden arrival of unexpected news is also a favourite device of the sensation novel. On the very day that Swithin is setting off to secretly marry Viviette he receives an inheritance, but only on the condition that he remain single. On virtually the same day Viviette also receives a letter from her brother Louis Granville (who has not been mentioned in the novel up to that point) announcing his arrival to thwart her romance.

Bigamy

But the most glaring element of sensationalism is the fact that Swithin and Viviette enter into a secret marriage. The reasons for secrecy are bound up with the complex socio-economic issues arising from their perceived difference in status – which Hardy does not fully explain or justify. The secret provides a dramatic element to the events that follow – but the more significant issue is that the marriage remains unconsummated for quite some time.

Moreover, there are not just one but two instances of bigamy in the novel. When Swithin and Viviette get married in secret, they do so believing that Sir Boult Constantine is dead- from disease contracted during his African lion hunt. But the report is what we might currently call false news – so for quite some time Viviette is married to two men – Swithin and Sir Boult.

This is perhaps the main reason Hardy leaves her second marriage unconsummated for so long. Public moral attitudes might not (probably would not) have tolerated both technical bigamy and what would have been seen as sexual pluralism at that time. This voluntary state of chastity also stretches the reader’s credulity – almost to breaking point.

It subsequently turns out that Sir Blount has indeed died – but at a much later date than that reported. So the secret marriage between Swithin and Viviette remains invalid, because at the time of its being registered Viviette was not free to marry someone else.

But this revelation allows Hardy to introduce another sensationalist element into the plot. Sir Blount has not died of typhoid or any other tropical disease. He too has committed a form of bigamy by taking an African ‘wife’ whilst still married to Viviette – and then he has subsequently committed suicide in what we take to be a fit of existential despair.

Indeed, Viviette comes close to being a double bigamist – because she marries Swithin whilst her first husband is still alive. Later, having learned that her first husband is now dead, she consummates her marriage to Swithin, but then after he leaves for South Africa she marries the Bishop of Melchester – whilst she is pregnant with Swithin’s child.

The final twist

Close followers of Hardy’s psychology and his attitude to women and human relationships will notice a double twist at the end of the novel. Swithin returns from South Africa to be confronted by Viviette as the ‘older woman’. She is only in her early thirties, but is described as being in her ‘worn and faded aspect’. She has also had by this point two former husbands. Swithin realises with horror he no longer loves her – but out of a sense of loyalty he offers to marry her. She spares him the ordeal by dying on the spot

But his neighbour Tabitha Lark has meanwhile conveniently matured into ‘blushing womanhood’ and is not only a trained musician but someone ready to help him transpose his astronomical notes. In other words, she is a younger wife ready and in waiting.

So just as Angel Clare goes off with Tess d’Uurberville’s younger sister after his wife is hanged for the murder of Alec d’Urberville, Hardy has a ‘solution’ to the problem on hand that reveals a great deal about his own unconscious and not-so-unconscious wishes – and one which he was to act out in his own troubled life with such unhappy consequences.

Hardy had a largely unhappy marriage, but following the death of his first wife Emma, he married the much younger woman Florence Dugdale – who was forty years his junior. Unfortunately for him this marriage also turned out to be unsatisfactory, and Hardy spent the next sixteen years expressing his remorse in poems dedicated to his first wife.

Symbolism

It is possible to see Swithin’s interest in astronomy as a metaphor for intellectual ambition and his yearning for a world beyond everyday existence in a provincial backwater of south-west England. But a more obvious instance of symbolism is the Tower itself and the telescopes used in his observations.

Almost all the romance between Swithin and Viviette is conducted on the clearly phallic tower – which even acquires a ‘dome’ during the course of events. It is Viviette who supplies Swithin with an object lens for his telescope when he rather clumsily breaks the one he has just bought. She also supplies the ‘equatorial mount’ – a device for synchronising the telescope with the earth’s axis of rotation.

Given that Swithin and Viviette spend the greater part of the novel in an unconsummated ‘union’, the tower and the telescopes act as suggestive symbolic parallels to their relationship

A weakness?

Swithin St Cleve is devastated to find that someone has made the same astronomical discovery as himself and published a scholarly paper on the matter. He collapses during a rainstorm, catches a chill, and is thought to be near the point of death. However, his spirits rise and he recovers on hearing news of the arrival of a comet – which he observes through his new ‘equatorial’ telescope.

Now of all the people in a remote rural location who would know about the arrival dates and visibility of comets – it would be an astronomer. Yet we are led to believe that this occurrence is some form of therapeutic surprise to Swithin. In addition, the comet appears to be visible for not just a number of days, but for months – which is uncommon to the point of extreme improbability. It is not like Hardy to make mistakes of this magnitude in his work.

Geography

Almost all the events of the novel take place in an unspecified location in the south-west of England. But apart from mention of Bath, Southampton, and Melchester (Salisbury) there is very little attempt on Hardy’s part to integrate his narrative with the world of ‘Wessex’ that is built up so powerfully in his other novels.

In novels such as The Return of the Native (1876), The Woodlanders (1887), and Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) the landscape of Wessex is not only densely realised and vividly evoked; it becomes part of the narrative of events itself.

Egdon Heath presides over all the events of The Native with a brooding intensity. The woods, forests and coppices provide not only the background to events but the livelihoods of characters in The Woodlanders. And Tess is forced to work on the land as an agricultural labourer because of her tragic circumstances.

This sort of close relationship between the geography of the region and the events of the narrative simply do not exist in Two on a Tower. There is very little reason to believe that the events of the novel take place imaginatively within the boundaries of Hardy’s traditional ‘Wessex’.

Two on a Tower – study resources

Two on a Tower – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

Two on a Tower – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

Two on a Tower – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon UK

Two on a Tower – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon US

The Complete Works of Thomas Hardy – Kindle eBook

Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy – Amazon UK

Two on a Tower – plot synopsis

I. Lady Constantine explores the memorial tower on her husband’s estate She meets the beautiful young man Swithin St Cleve who is studying astronomy

II. Members of the local choir assemble for practice at Grandma Martin’s house. Tabitha Lark reports on Lady Constantine’s listlessness. Her husband Sir Blount Constantine is missing in Africa. Swithin hides upstairs in the house.

III. Lady Constantine asks parson Torkingham’s advice on her vow to remain socially secluded during her husband’s visit to Africa. She agrees to maintain her vow.

IV. Lady Constantine visits Swithin on the tower. He describes astronomy in emotive terms.. She asks him to check on Sir Blount who has been seen in London.

V. The person on London is not Sir Blount. Swithin breaks his new object lens, but Lady Constantine replaces it. She cuts off a lock of his hair whilst he is asleep.

VI. Swithin’s new telescope doesn’t work, but Lady Constantine agrees to buy him an ‘equatorial’ viewing instrument. The new project energises her.

VII. She decides to buy the new instrument for herself, and let him have use of it. But local gossip about their relationship begins, so she puts the whole project into his name.

VIII . She pays over the money for the instrument in secret then visits the new telescope at night with Swithin. She feels he is losing himself in the stars.

IX. Swithin makes a new astronomical discovery, but then finds that someone else has just published the same results. He falls ill, and when Lady Constantine goes to visit him he is thought to be dying.

X. Swithin’s spirits are revived by the arrival of a comet. Lady Constantine follows the news of his recovery at a distance.

XI. Lady Constantine feels guilty about her romantic yearning for Swithin, and she vows to both deny herself and find him a suitable wife. At this very point Torkinham reveals that her husband died some time ago in Africa.

XII. Sir Blount dies leaving his estate in debt. Much of his estate is sold off, and Lady Constantine is left in relative poverty. She goes to the tower and reveals her position to Swithin, wondering why he is so matter-of-fact in his response.

XIII. They try to leave the tower, but are obstructed by the arrival of the rustics, who discuss Lady Constantine, Swithin, and the possibilities of a marriage. Swithin is shocked by what he overhears.

XIV. The new knowledge inflames his passion, but when they meet she feels guilty at distracting him from his astronomy They think their relationship cannot succeed, and must be concealed from the general public.

XV. Three months later they meet on the tower again. . He proposes a secret marriage, which will only be revealed when he becomes ‘famous’. In the meantime, they will continue to live separately. She agrees to the proposal.

XVI. A sudden gale blows the protective dome off the tower and the gable end off his grandmother’s house. Plans are changed. She will go to Bath and arrange a marriage license. She gets a letter announcing the arrival of her brother from South America.

XVII. Lady Constantine goes to Bath and despite her fears and misgivings she arranges a marriage license – though she is two days short of qualification.

XVIII. Swithin sets out to join her in Bath, but the same morning he gets notice of an inheritance from his great-uncle. However, it stipulates that he must not marry before reaching twenty-five. He ignores the offer and sets off.

XIX . They meet in Bath and after delays are married. But Viviette’s face is cut by a horse whip at the station – brandished by her brother. Fearing they will be recognised and exposed, they hide out in the Tower hut.

XX. They observe the Aurora Borealis from the Tower, then the next day she goes back home.

XXI . Swithin visits Viviette secretly at her home. She shows him round the house, and persuades him to be confirmed in church.

XXII. Viviette’s brother Louis Glanville suddenly arrives at the house. Swithin hides, then leaves dressed in an old coat of Sir Blount’s. The rustics meet him on the way back and think they have seen a ghost.

XXIII. Winter comes and goes. Viviette refurbishes the house in preparation for the forthcoming confirmation ceremony.

XXIV. The confirmation ceremony takes place, during which Louis watches Swithin very closely.

XXV. The visiting bishop is an old friend of Swithin’s father. He takes a keen interest in Swithin at the luncheon celebration that follows. In the evening he is taken to see the Tower.

XXVI. Viviette. is at the Tower, but hides when the Bishop’s party arrives. Swithin shows them the observatory, but the Bishop appears to be suspicious of something.

XXVII. Next day the Bishop accuses Swithin of having a woman in his room, and produces a bracelet as evidence. Swithin assures him he has done nothing wrong.

XXVIII. Louis gives the bracelet to Tabitha and urges Viviette to encourage the Bishop. He tries to sow suspicion in his sister’s mind against Swithin.

XXIX. Viviette and Tabitha divide their bracelets into two – which thwarts Louis in his suspicions. But he vows to set a trap for Viviette and Swithin.

XXX. Louis invites Swithin to dinner, then insists that he stay over. When Swithin disappears during the night, Louis interrogates Viviette, who admits that she loves Swithin – who had merely gone back to the Tower to take a reading.

XXXI. Viviette receives a proposal of marriage from the Bishop. Louis urges her to accept it, but she refuses. He leaves the house in a rage.

XXXII. Viviette and Swithin decide to reveal their marriage to the Bishop and to Louis. Viviette’s solicitor sends word that Sir Blount died much later than was previously thought. Viviette realises that her current marriage to Swithin is therefore invalid.

XXXIII. Viviette sends a letter of refusal to the Bishop. Swithin tells her not to worry about the legalities, and they plan to marry a second time.

XXXIV. Viviette reads a letter from Swithin’s solicitor regarding his unclaimed inheritance. She fears that she is preventing him from advancing in his best interests. Swithin urges that they undertake a second marriage.

XXXV. Her fears are confirmed when she reads the original inheritance letter from Swithin’s great-uncle, warning him against marriage. She decides to sacrifice her own happiness in Swithin’s best social interests. Finally she proposes postponing the marriage until he is twenty-five.

XXXVII. Swithin sets off for the southern hemisphere, and his lodgings at the Tower are dismantled. Viviette has a vision of a golden-haired child, and decides she must follow Swithin.

XXXVIII. She goes to Southampton but his ship has just left. She returns to Grandma Martin and writes letters to Swithin telling him that he cannot claim his inheritance.

XXXIX. Louis goes to Melchester and tells the Bishop that Viviette is ready to marry him. The Bishop arrives next day, and Viviette accepts him, believing that it will leave Swithin free to claim his inheritance.

XL. Swithin goes to America on the expedition to study the transit of Venus, and then settles on the South African cape. He receives a letter from his grandmother announcing Viviette’s marriage to the Bishop, and another from Viviette justifying her decision and giving him news of their child.

XLI. Three years later a newspaper announces the death of the Bishop. Swithin’s researches are complete, so he goes home. He meets Viviette on the Tower and is horrified to find her aged and unattractive. Nevertheless, he offers to marry her, but she dies from the shock.

Two on a Tower – characters

Swithin St Cleve	a handsome young astronomer
Sir Bount Constantine	estate owner and African explorer
Lady Viviette Constantine	his attractive young wife
Louis Glanville	Viviette’s profligate brother
Dr Helmsdale	the Bishop of Melchester

More on Thomas Hardy
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories

Ulysses

January 31, 2010 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, characters, study resources, video, textual history

Ulysses (1922) is probably the greatest novel of the twentieth century, and certainly Joyce’s finest work. Taking Homer’s Odyssey as a structural framework, Joyce builds on it a complex narrative of Dublin characters on one day – Thursday 16 June 1904. Each chapter features a different prose-style to match its theme or subject. One chapter is even written in a manner which traces the history of English prose, from the Renaissance to modern advertising jargon.

James Joyce

It also includes two versions of the ‘stream of consciousness’ technique. This sought to reproduce the apparently chaotic manner in which our perceptions of the external world mingle themselves with ideas and memories in an undifferentiated and unstoppable river of thought. This includes the famous final chapter which is an unpunctuated eighty page soliloquy of Molly Bloom as she lies in bed at night, thinking over her life and the events of the previous day.

Rather like Picasso, Joyce had a multiplicity of styles, any one of which was enough to make lesser writers famous as they imitated him. Ulysses is a cornerstone of modern English Literature – written by an Irishman in Trieste, Zurich, and Paris.

Ulysses – plot summary

Ever since Stuart Gilbert published his explanation of the novel in James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’, it has been conventional to refer to the separate chapters of the book by the names of their originals in the Greek epic.

Telemachus
Stephen Dedalus spends the early morning hours of June 16, 1904, remaining aloof from his mocking friend, Buck Mulligan, and Buck’s English acquaintance, Haines. As Stephen leaves for work, Buck orders him to leave the house key and meet them at the pub at 12:30.

Nestor
Around 10:00 am, Stephen teaches a history lesson to his class at Garrett Deasy’s boys’ school. After class, Stephen meets with Deasy to receive his wages. The narrow-minded and prejudiced Deasy lectures Stephen on life. Stephen agrees to take Deasy’s editorial letter about cattle disease to acquaintances at the newspaper.

Proteus
Stephen spends the remainder of his morning walking alone on Sandymount Strand, thinking critically about his younger self and about perception. He composes a poem in his head and writes it down on a scrap torn from Deasy’s letter.

Calypso
At 8:00 am the same morning, Leopold Bloom fixes breakfast and brings his wife her mail and breakfast in bed. One of her letters is from Molly’s concert tour manager, Blazes Boylan. Bloom suspects he is also Molly’s lover. Bloom returns downstairs, reads a letter from their daughter, Milly, then goes to the outside lavatory.

The Lotus Eaters
At 10:00 am, Bloom picks up an amorous letter from the post office – he is corresponding with a woman named Martha Clifford under the pseudonym Henry Flower. He reads the tepid letter, ducks briefly into a church, then orders Molly’s lotion from the pharmacist. He runs into Bantam Lyons, who mistakenly gets the impression that Bloom is giving him a tip on the horse Throwaway in the afternoon’s Gold Cup race.

Hades
Around 11:00 am, Bloom rides with Simon Dedalus (Stephen’s father), Martin Cunningham, and Jack Power to the funeral of Paddy Dignam. The men treat Bloom as somewhat of an outsider. At the funeral, Bloom thinks about the deaths of his son and his father.

Aeolus
At noon, Bloom is at the offices of the Freeman newspaper, negotiating an advertisement for Keyes, a liquor merchant. Several idle men, including editor Myles Crawford, are hanging around in the office, discussing political speeches. Bloom leaves to secure the ad. Stephen arrives at the newspaper with Deasy’s letter. Stephen and the other men leave for the pub just as Bloom is returning.

Lestrygonians
At 1:00 pm, Bloom runs into Josie Breen, an old flame, and they discuss Mina Purefoy, who is in labour at the maternity hospital. Bloom stops in Burton’s restaurant, but he decides to move on to Davy Byrne’s for a light lunch. Bloom reminisces about an intimate afternoon with Molly on Howth. Bloom leaves and is walking toward the National Library when he spots Boylan on the street and ducks into the National Museum.

Scylla and Charybdis
At 2:00 pm Stephen is informally presenting his theory on Hamlet in the National Library to the poet AE and the librarians John Eglinton, Best, and Lyster. AE is dismissive of Stephen’s theory and leaves. Buck enters and jokingly scolds Stephen for failing to meet him and Haines at the pub. On the way out, Buck and Stephen pass Bloom, who has come to obtain a copy of Keyes’ ad.

The Wandering Rocks
This episode consists of nineteen short views of characters, major and minor, as they make their way around Dublin in the afternoon. Within each subsection, short, disjunctive paragraphs pop up that depict a simultaneous action in some other part of the city. It serves as an interlude between the first and last nine episodes.

Sirens
At 4:00 pm Simon Dedalus, Ben Dollard, Lenehan, and Blazes Boylan converge at the Ormond Hotel bar. Bloom notices Boylan’s car outside and decides to watch him. Boylan soon leaves for his appointment with Molly, and Bloom sits morosely in the Ormond restaurant – briefly mollified by Dedalus’s and Dollard’s singing. Bloom writes back to Martha, then leaves to post the letter.

Cyclops
At 5:00 pm Bloom arrives at Barney Kiernan’s pub to meet Martin Cunningham about the Dignam family finances, but Cunningham has not yet arrived. The citizen, a belligerent Irish nationalist, becomes increasingly drunk and begins attacking Bloom’s Jewishness. Bloom stands up to the citizen, speaking in favour of peace and love over xenophobic violence. Bloom and the citizen have an altercation on the street before Cunningham’s carriage carries Bloom away.

Nausicaa
Bloom relaxes on Sandymount Strand around sunset, after his visit to Mrs. Dignam’s house nearby. A young woman, Gerty MacDowell, notices Bloom watching her from across the beach. Gerty subtly reveals more and more of her legs while Bloom surreptitiously masturbates. Gerty leaves, and Bloom dozes.

Oxen of the Sun
At 10:00 pm Bloom wanders to the maternity hospital to check on Mina Purefoy. Also at the hospital are Stephen and several of his medical student friends, drinking and talking boisterously about subjects related to birth. Bloom agrees to join them, though he privately disapproves of their revelry in light of Mrs. Purefoy’s struggles upstairs. Buck arrives, and the men proceed to Burke’s pub. At closing time, Stephen convinces his friend Lynch to go to the brothel section of town and Bloom follows, feeling protective.

Circe
This episode takes the form of a play script with stage directions and descriptions. The majority of the action occurs only as drunken, subconscious, anxiety-ridden hallucinations. Bloom finally locates Stephen and Lynch at Bella Cohen’s brothel. Stephen is drunk and imagines that he sees the ghost of his mother – full of rage, he shatters a lamp with his walking stick. Bloom runs after Stephen and finds him in an argument with a British soldier who knocks him out.

Eumaeus
Bloom revives Stephen and takes him for coffee at a cabman’s shelter to sober up. They meet a sailor who regales them with traveller’s tales. There is also talk about Irish nationalism. Bloom invites Stephen back to his house.

Ithaca
Well after midnight, Stephen and Bloom arrive back at Bloom’s house. They drink cocoa and talk about their respective backgrounds. Bloom asks Stephen to stay the night. Stephen politely refuses. Bloom sees him out and comes back in to find evidence of Boylan’s visit. Still, Bloom is at peace with the world and he climbs into bed, tells Molly of his day and requests breakfast in bed.

Penelope
After Bloom falls asleep, Molly remains awake, surprised by Bloom’s request for breakfast in bed. Her mind wanders to her childhood in Gibraltar, her afternoon of sex with Boylan, her singing career, and Stephen Dedalus. Her thoughts of Bloom vary wildly over the course of the monologue, but it ends with a reminiscence of their intimate moment at Howth and a positive affirmation.

Sackville Street, Dublin

Study resources

Ulysses – Oxford University Press 1922 version – Amazon UK

Ulysses – Oxford University Press 1922 version – Amazon US

Ulysses – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon UK

Ulysses – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon US

Ulysses – 1967 film version by Joseph Strick – Amazon UK

Ulysses – audio book (abridged) – Amazon UK

Ulysses – the Hans Gabler ‘corrected’ text edition – Amazon UK

Ulysses – Cliffs Notes – Amazon UK

Ulysses – Annotated Notes edition – Amazon UK

Ulysses – audioBook version at LibriVox

James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ – an introduction and explanation – Amazon UK

The New Bloomsday Book – chapter-by-chapter guide

Ulysses – eBook version at Project Gutenberg

James Joyce: A Critical Guide – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce – Amazon UK

James Joyce: Texts and Contexts – Amazon UK

Ulysses – a video introduction

Principal characters

Leopold Bloom	a 38 year old Jewish Dublin newspaper advertising salesman
Marion (Molly) Bloom	his 33 year old adulterous wife
Millicent Bloom	their 15 year old daughter who does not appear in the novel
Rudy Bloom	their son, who died 11 years ago
Stephen Dedalus	aspiring poet in his early 20s
Simon Dedalus	Stephen’s father, a drinker and singer
Malachi (Buck) Mulligan	medical student and friend of Stephen’s
Hugh (Blazes) Boylan	concert manager and Molly’s lover
Martha Clifford	Bloom’s secret correspondent, a sexual tease
Bella Cohen	a brothel keeper
Garret Deasy	headmaster at school where Stephen teaches
Patrick Dignam	a friend of Bloom who has recently died
Joe Hynes	a reporter for Bloom’s newspaper
Minna Kennedy Lydia Douce	flirtatious barmaids at the Ormond hotel
Ned Lambert	a friend of Stephen Dedalus and others
Gerty MacDowell	lame girl who flashes for Bloom
Kitty Ricketts	prostitute working in Bella’s brothel
the citizen	a belligerent Irish nationalist

Ulysses – first edition

Ulysses – textual history

The writing and publication history of Ulysses is almost as complicated as the novel itself. Joyce composed the novel over a seven year period between 1914 and 1921. Extracts from it first began to appear in the American magazine The Little Review from 1918, but publication was halted when the Nausicaa episode led to prosecution. At a trial in 1921, the magazine was declared obscene and as a result Ulysses was banned in the United States.

The first publication in book form was in France in February 1922 where the American Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare and Company had 1,000 copies printed. The novel quickly became notorious, and copies were smuggled across the Channel into England.

One factor which complicates the textual history of the novel is that Joyce continued working on it, even after it had been published. The printer in Dijon had made errors; Ezra Pound had made cuts and changes to the episodes in circulation via magazines, and Joyce revised multiple copies of his work which had been produced by non-professional typists from his near-illegible handwritten manuscripts.

Joyce had an English patroness Harriet Shaw Weaver who paid for the publication of an English edition by the Egoist Press in October 1922. This contained so many typographical errors that it was issued with an apology from the publisher. When 500 copies were sent to America they were seized by the government authorities, and when the publisher ordered replacements, these were impounded and burned by the customs office at Folkstone.

Such was the book’s notoriety that pirated editions began to appear. In America, publisher Samuel Roth reprinted fourteen bowdlerized episodes and issued them in two volumes, complete with his own preface. When this aroused a protest from writers and artists in America and the UK, he retorted by printing a photographic forgery of the Shakespeare and Company edition

The ban on Ulysses was finally lifted in the United States in December 1933, the same week as prohibition was repealed. Random House published the first American edition in 1934, but this was based upon a pirated earlier edition which contained lots of typographical errors. The first authorised English edition was published by Bodley Head in 1936.

Various new editions appeared on both sides of the Atlantic in the years that followed, but all of them were based on earlier, flawed versions. As the date for the expiry of Joyce’s copyright began to draw near (in 1992, fifty years after his death) a number of publishers rushed to issue new editions. What they hoped to do was compile a clean and error-free version which could be copyrighted as ‘the definitive’ edition, and thus secure for them a lucrative monopoly for the next fifty years.

The most spectacular of these attempts was that piloted by the German scholar Hans Walter Gabler, who proposed to ‘recover’ the original text by comparing surviving manuscripts, corrected proofs, and existing editions. He produced what was called a synoptic version, which was issued as Ulysses: The Corrected Text in 1986. This was designed to put an end to all uncertainties regarding the accuracy of the text.

But in 1988 an American scholar John Kidd published a blistering critique of Gabler and his work in The New York Review of Books. This pointed out flaws in Gabler’s methodology, listed weaknesses in his interpretation, and exposed new mistakes in the supposedly ‘corrected’ version. A huge academic argument ensued, conducted in the full light of public gaze. Scholarly opinion gradually turned against Gabler, and publishers in the UK and America have quietly withdrawn his edition.

In the meantime, the law on copyright has changed, the James Joyce estate has refused to authorise any further definitive editions, and various publishers have been issuing reprints of earlier editions, from that of 1922 onwards – so confusion continues to reign. As Joyce himself prophetically observed, “Ulysses [will] give Universities something to work on well into the next century.” Which is exactly the current state of affairs.

Dublin 1915

Other works by James Joyce

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is Joyce’s first complete novel – a largely autobiographical account of a young man’s struggle with Catholicism and his desire to forge himself as an artist. It features a prose style whose complexity develops in parallel with the growth of the hero, Stephen Dedalus. The early pages are written from a child’s point of view, but then they quickly become more sophisticated. As Stephen struggles with religious belief and the growth of his sexual feelings as a young adult, the prose become more complex and philosophical. In addition to the account of his personal life and a critique of Irish society at the beginning of the last century, it also incorporates the creation of an aesthetic philosophy which was unmistakably that of Joyce himself. The novel ends with Stephen quitting Ireland for good, just as Joyce himself was to do – never to return.
Buy the book at Amazon UK
Buy the book at Amazon US

Ulysses (1922) is one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, and it is certainly Joyce’s most celebrated work. He takes Homer’s Odyssey as a structural framework and uses it as the base to create a complex story of characters moving around Dublin on a single day in June 1904. Each separate chapter is written in a different prose style to reflect its theme or subject. The novel also includes two forms of the ‘stream of consciousness’ technique. This was Joyce’s attempt to reproduce the apparently random way in which our perceptions of the world are mixed with our conscious ideas and memories in an unstoppable flow of thought. There is a famous last chapter which is an eighty page unpunctuated soliloquy of a woman as she lies in bed at night, mulling over the events of her life and episodes from the previous day.
Buy the book at Amazon UK
Buy the book at Amazon US

James Joyce – web links

James Joyce at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major works, book reviews, studies of the short stories, bibliographies, web links, study resources.

James Joyce at Project Gutenberg
A limited collection of free eTexts in a variety of digital formats.

James Joyce at Wikipedia
Full biography, social background, interpretation of the major works, religion, music, list of biographies, and external web links.

James Joyce at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, plus box office, technical credits, and quizzes.

James Joyce Centre in Dublin
Exhibition centre, walking tours, lectures, and newsletter. The latest addition is a graphic novel version of ‘Ulysses’.

The James Joyce Scholars’ Collection
University of Wisconsin – digitised scans of Finnegans Wake and out-of-print studies on Joyce’s language, plus rare critical studies.

An Annotated Ulysses
An online version of Ulysses with hyperlinks giving explanations of obscure and classical references in the text.

Cornell’s James Joyce Collection
Cornell University – a collection of letters, manuscripts, and books documenting the life and work of James Joyce on exhibition in 2005. Particularly strong on Joyce’s early life.

A Bibliography of Scholarship and Criticism
Slightly dated but still useful web-based compilation of criticism and commentary – covers Joyce himself, plus the stories and novels.

More on James Joyce
Twentieth century literature
More on study skills

Unconditional Surrender

March 18, 2018 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, study guide, commentary, web links

Unconditional Surrender (1961 is the third and final volume in Evelyn Waugh’s trilogy Sword of Honour following Men at Arms and Officers and Gentlemen. The events of the novel are very loosely based on Evelyn Waugh’s own experiences of his Second World War service between 1939 and 1945. For a detailed examination of the parallels and constructive differences, see the excellent introduction and explanatory notes to the Penguin edition of Sword of Honour edited by Angus Calder.

Unconditional Surrender – commentary

The principal themes

The final volume of the trilogy continues the main concerns of its two predecessors – the absurd bureaucracy and inefficiency of military organisation, and Guy Crouchback’s search for an honourable existence in a chivalric tradition which is collapsing all around him.

The contradictions of life in the armed services are all too obvious. There is snobbishness and petty discipline throughout the organisation, plus ridiculous distinctions in levels of superiority. Personnel are promoted for no reason other than administrative convenience, then just as arbitrarily demoted.

Supplies fail to arrive, then are delivered when there is no longer any need for them. Orders are issued, then cancelled with no explanation. Troops are put on alert for attacks which do not take place. Key roles are allocated to personnel with no appropriate skills or experience.

This is not merely Evelyn Waugh expressing some form of revenge criticism for the discomforts he may have suffered during his own military experience. Rather, he sees the whole officer class as blinded by its own ignorance and privilege. It is a patrician view of regret that some imaginary tradition of honourable conduct is coming to an end. And it is being replaced by a shabby and lacklustre modernity.

Guy Crouchback

The case of Guy Crouchback as an individual is very closely linked to that of official disarray and inefficiency in the officer class. Guy is trying to uphold the values and behaviours of an old chivalric tradition which is in terminal decline. In fact he is the last male member of the Crouchback family. His elder brother has been killed in the first world war (on his first day in combat) and his other brother has gone mad and died.

Guy has been married (to Virginia) but is now divorced and has no children. To emphasise the fact that he is the last chance for producing a hereditary heir to the Broome estate, his father dies during the course of Unconditional Surrender and Guy is described by a friend as fin de ligne.

All Guy’s attempts at making a positive contribution to the war effort come to nought – largely because of military incompetence, but also as a result of his ‘bad luck’ and outdated notions of honourable behaviour.

To emphasise Guy’s impotence, Waugh produces his final satirical piece of irony. Guy re-marries the feckless, selfish, and louche Virginia – a woman whom he desires but does not really love. And she is pregnant with someone else’s child. In fact Guy re-marries her because she is pregnant: he takes on the unborn child as a chivalrous gesture to help a woman in distress.

More than that, the ‘someone else’ is Trimmer McTavish, the lower-class opportunist and womaniser who is the moral epitome of everything Guy disdains and tries to rise above. So the Crouchback line and tradition appears to be continued as far as the public is concerned, but Guy knows that it is not. At the end of the novel, following the death of Virginia in a doodle bug raid, Guy gets married again to a younger woman – but they have no natural children between them.

And to further underscore this theme of decline in the upper-class and its traditions, there is a similar ‘end of the line’ conclusion in the other branch of the family. Guy’s sister Angela has a son, Tony, who joins the army at the same time as Guy. Tony is taken prisoner during the war, but at its end he takes up holy orders and enters a monastery. There is to be no continuity on that side of the Crouchback family either.

Conclusion

The novel ends with a series of misunderstandings and ironic reversals that accurately mirror those of its beginning. Guy befriends and tries to help a group of Jews who are being treated as ‘displaced persons’. As a parting gesture he gives one family his remaining rations and a pile of old American magazines. The family are arrested by partisans and tried as spies possessing ‘counter-revolutionary propaganda’. The implication is that they are executed. Guy’s act of good will brings about the death of people he has tried to help – just as his friendly bottle of whisky killed Apthorpe.

Ludovic the strange author of pensees is revealed as someone mentally unstable, a murderer, and a Communist. He also rather surprisingly turns out to be the best-selling author of The Death Wish which seems to be a bad romantic novel. His royalty proceeds are spent buying Guy’s family home in Italy.

Sir Ralph Brompton is almost like a character from the Cambridge Spy Ring: he co-ordinates the activities of the other communists and their sympathisers whilst appearing to be an unimpeachable member of English society.

After his escape to India to evade a court matial for cowardice in deserting his troops in Crete, Ivor Claire joins the Chindits in Burma and is awarded a Distinguished Service Order.

In other words, treachery and bungling incompetence are rewarded, whilst honourable, chivalrous behaviour results in ironic tragedy. It is not surprising that Guy Crouchback finally retreats into cultivating his garden.

Unconditional Surrender – study resources

Unconditional Surrender – Penguin – Amazon UK

Unconditional Surrender – Penguin – Amazon US

Sword of Honour – Paperback – Amazon UK
The full trilogy – with explanatory notes

Sword of Honour – DVD film – Amazon UK
Channel 4 TV series adaptation – with Daniel Craig

Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited – Amazon UK

Evelyn Waugh – by Henry Lamb

Unconditional Surrender – plot summary

Eight weeks after leaving Alexandria Guy arrives back in London. Trimmer is touring northern England as a war hero accompanied by Virginia. No proper job can be found for Guy, and he is too old for active service. He is given an ill-defined job as a liaison officer, with very little to do.

Ludovic has had his pensees accepted for publication by a left-wing magazine. Virginia is divorced by her third husband Mr Troy. She is tired of Trimmer, pregnant with his child, and broke. When Ludovic meets Guy at a smart party in Chelsea, he is frightened that Guy will reveal the truth about what happened during the retreat from Crete. There is an implication that he was responsible for the deaths of Horn and the boat skipper.

Old Mr Crouchback dies, leaving Guy the last in his family’s line, but inheriting half of the money. Guy wonders if some task or duty will arise to assuage his sense of ennui and uselessness.

Virginia tries to locate an abortionist, without success. Ludovic is in charge of parachute training, to which Guy is sent prior to a posting in Italy. In fear of being recognised, Ludovic hides from everyone. Guy injures his knee on the practice jump and is hospitalised. Ludovic nevertheless recommends him for active service – in order to get rid of him.

Guy goes to stay with his bachelor uncle Peregrine. He is visited by Virginia, who flirts with Peregrine and wants to re-marry Guy. She tells him about her pregnancy, and he marries her because of it, out of a sense of chivalry and self-sacrifice.

Guy arrives in Bari in southern Italy and is briefed for a posting in Yugoslavia. He is put in charge of a supply airfield in Croatia and becomes caught up in problems dealing with a group of Jews who are being treated as displaced persons.

In London Virginia converts to Catholicism, has her baby, and then ignores it. Ludovic completes a long romantic novel. Guy is joined by his new commander Frank de Souza, and he learns of the death of Virginia and Peregrine in a flying bomb attack.

A bogus military operation is mounted for the sake of visiting dignitaries, including Ritchie-Hook who returns to the story. The aeroplane bringing them from Italy crashes on arrival, killing several of the crew. The staged attack on an enemy post is badly organised and executed, and Ritchie-Hook (acting alone) is killed.

Guy’s attempt to save a group of Jews fails, and he is recalled to Italy. He learns later that their leaders have been betrayed by information supplied by Communists from within his own ranks.

In 1951 after the war Guy marries the daughter of the woman who has raised Trimmer’s son, and he becomes a farmer in Somerset. Ludovic buys Guy’s family home in Italy on the strength of his royalties.

Unconditional Surrender – main characters

Guy Crouchback	an idealistic and honourable young officer
Ian Kilbannock	a former journalist
Tommy Blackhouse	Guy’s friend and Virginia’s second husband
Colonel Jumbo Trotter	an old Halberdier
Virginia Troy	ex-wife to Guy and Tommy
Corporal-Major Ludovic
Julia Stritch	glamorous wife of a diplomat in Alexandria
Trimmer McTavish	a womaniser, spiv, and former hairdresser
Sir Ralph Brompton	diplomatic ‘advisor’ and Communist spy
Everard Spruce	editor of Survival magazine
Lieutenant Padfield	American liaison officer, former lawyer
Peregrine Crouchback	Guy’s bachelor uncle, a bibliophile
Frank de Souza	Guy’s witty friend, a Jewish Communist
Virginia Troy	louche ex-wife to Guy and Tommy
Ivor Claire	a dandy, horseman, and coward

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Under the Greenwood Tree

October 11, 2017 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, study guide, commentary, further reading, web links

Under the Greenwood Tree was Thomas Hardy’s second novel to be published. It appeared anonymously in 1872, and was the first in his great series of what came to be called the ‘Wessex’ novels. It is a light, pastoral comedy of manners that is quite unlike the dark and tragic novels of his later years for which he is well known. The sub-title suggests both the principal subject and the tone in which it should be considered: The Mellstock Quire: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School.

Under the Greenwood Tree – commentary

Thomas Hardy was disappointed by the rejection of his first novel The Poor Man and the Lady at the hands of publishers Chapman and Hall. To offset this, for his second work, Desperate Remedies (1871), he chose a popular genre – the sensation novel – which full of dramatic plot devices designed to shock readers. When this too failed to meet his hopes of commercial success, he decided to turn to a subject that he knew intimately – the life and customs of ordinary working people from rural south-west England. For his third novel he created a fictional landscape called ‘Wessex’ and he made it entirely his own in the many novels that followed.

Because he chose rural settings for his work, Hardy was at first considered by many critics as merely a ‘regional novelist’ – a minor artist whose vision of life is limited by geographic boundaries. But this view has since been completely overturned, and Hardy is now seen as a major novelist of the late nineteenth century. Almost all his most important works are set in a fictional version of south-west England, but they encompass issues of social class, education, gender identity, industrialisation, and the psychology of individuals pitting themselves against society and even what is often seen as a cosmic destiny.

The geographic location of events in the Wessex novels is an interesting blend of real and fictional place names. Some towns are given their real names – such as Bristol, Bath, and Southampton. Others are given invented names – so Dorchester becomes ‘Casterbridge’, the Isle of Portand becomes ‘The Isle of Slingers’, and Dartmoor is re-named ‘Egdon Heath’.

It is generally accepted that the events of the Mellstock parish church and its choir (or ‘quire’) are based on the based on the church at Stinsford in Dorset, near to where Hardy grew up in Little Brockhampton.

The historical theme

Hardy was very conscious that during his own lifetime many rural occupations and much traditional behaviour were being swept away by the arrival of new forms of transport, production, and ownership. His novels create a record of these pastoral traditions as a form of social record, and he is particularly acute in registering the details of rural economy and its effects on a wide range of characters – from rural labourers, through craftsmen, to farmers, tradesmen, and local landowners.

For a work as gentle as Under the Greenwood Tree Hardy selects an appropriately minor feature of traditional social life – the musicians and singers of a parish choir. Its members are all tradesmen and workers who play a variety of stringed instruments – which they clannishly regard as the only appropriate accompaniment to both religious and secular performance. They particularly object to the introduction of clarinets – which became popular in the mid nineteenth century.

But they are threatened by vicar Maybold’s introduction of the organ or harmonium. It is significant that their provision of musical accompaniment involves the sympathetic co-operation of a group of musicians, whereas the organ is played by an individual. Socially cohesive practices from an earlier age are being replaced by individualism and a machine-age device.

It is worth noting how skilfully Hardy blends his two themes on this issue. Maybold could easily have been demonised as an enemy of the rustics, but in fact he compromises with them over the date of introducing the organ. But the person who will play it is Fancy Day – in whom he has a romantic interest.

The romantic theme

In his later, more mature novels Hardy explored all sorts of complex issues that arise between men and women in their emotional attachments to each other. In The Mayor of Casterbridge Michael Henchard actually sells a wife he no longer loves, then reaps the consequences when she comes back to him years later. In Tess of the d’Urbervilles Tess murders the man who has seduced her so that she is psychologically free to run off with the man who is her lawful husband.

There are no such dark issues in Under the Greenwood Tree. In this novel Hardy explores a very innocent and simple romance between two characters who have very few psychological problems perplexing them. But their relationship does include issues that Hardy was to explore more fully in his later works – principally those of class and education.

Fancy’s father Geoffrey Fay objects to Dick Dewey as a suitor to his daughter on grounds of class expectations and education. Fancy is the daughter of Geoffrey’s first marriage to a well educated woman, and she has been sent to the best finishing schools – which is why she is qualified to be a schoolteacher. Moreover, Mr Day has lived at a modest level with his second wife in order to provide Fancy with a good dowry. He is hoping to attract a well-to-do middle class husband for his daughter. Dick Dewey is merely the son of a man with a horse and cart haulage business.

Geoffrey Day’s capitulation to Fancy’s self-starvation tactic is not altogether convincing, but it does introduce the element of folk superstitions (the ‘witch’ Elizabeth Endorfield) that Hardy was to include in many of his other novels as part of the traditional beliefs and behaviours he was documenting.

The romance between Dick and Fancy runs a predictable series of ups and downs – all congruent with the delicate and emotionally good-natured tenor of the plot. But the story does end on an interesting note that speaks volumes for what was to come in Hardy’s later work. In a moment of self-indulgent weakness, Fancy accepts Maybold’s proposal of marriage whilst she is still engaged to Dick Dewey. (Maybold is the sort of suitor of whom her father certainly would approve.) But then she rescinds the decision next day.

Maybold, a very honourable chap, accepts her reasons and recommends that she confess all to Dick Dewey, who he predicts will be forgiving. But she does not tell her husband about the incident – and so their marriage begins with a secret between them – ‘a secret she would never tell’.

Significance

Although Under the Greenwood Tree is obviously very light-hearted in tone and is generally classed amongst Hardy’s minor works, it has a far greater significance when viewed in the light of his later novels.

First, it establishes ‘Wessex’ as a fictional location which Hardy would make the setting for all his major works in the years that followed. Wessex is an area of south-west England bounded by Somerset in the north, Devon, Cornwall, and Hampshire and Dorsetshire in the south. His account of this locale, in all its topographical, geographical, architectural, and botanical detail is what gives his novels their compelling realism.

The issues he explores – such as the relationships between rustic country people and the content of their social and emotional lives – is something he would take to the level of high drama and even tragedy in his later works. Dick Dewey is the son of a carter (a ‘tranter’) but by the end of the novel he has had business cards printed with a view to becoming more successful and occupying a slightly higher social position. Michael Henchard in The Mayor of Casterbridge is similarly ambitious, but after a spectacular rise he is eventually reduced to a form of self-destruction at the end of which he wishes to be remembered by nobody.

The rustics in Under the Greenwood Tree are a charming set of naive, friendly, and sympathetic characters variations of whom will recur in Hardy’s later novels. They are always depicted as simple, honest, folk embracing any number of folk memories, superstitions, and tolerance of each other’s foibles. They also embody the vehicle of everyday speech patterns, local dialect, slang, and regional pronunciation that Hardy was keen to record.

Under the Greenwood Tree – resources

Under the Greenwood Tree – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Under the Greenwood Tree – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

Under the Greenwood Tree – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon UK

Under the Greenwood Tree – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon US

The Complete Works of Thomas Hardy – Kindle eBook

Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy – Amazon UK

A Laodicean

Under the Greenwood Tree – synopsis

Part the First – Winter

I. Dick Dewy meets fellow members of the Mellstock parish choir after work on Christmas Eve.

II. They all go to his father’s cottage where Reuben Dewy clumsily taps a barrel of cider for consumption before their tour of the parish.

III. There is light-hearted banter about recognising someone from their footwear, and mention of new schoolmistress Fancy Day and her prettiness.

IV . The choir makes a procession round the hamlets, playing hymns and bemoaning the loss of musical traditions.

V. They serenade young schoolmistress Fancy Day, where Dick Dewy becomes entranced. Farmer Shiner is hostile to their serenade. They then move on to the new parson Mr Maybold, whose reception is lukewarm.

VI. On Christmas Day morning Dick is still in a romantic daze. The choir performs in church, but it is disrupted by loud singing from schoolgirls.

VII. At midnight on Christmas Day dancing begins at Reuben Dewy’s party. Dick feels pangs of jealousy when Fancy dances with rich farmer Mr Shiner..

VIII. The dancing gets faster. Heavy men remove their jackets. They sit to a late supper. Tales of old folk beliefs are related. Dick is rueful that Fancy is escorted home by Mr Shiner.

IX. Some days later Dick calls at the school to return Fancy’s handkerchief, but is too shy to take advantage of the situation.

Part the Second – Spring

I . Dick makes frequent visits past the schoolhouse in order to see Fancy.

II. The choir members are worried by what they see as Parson Maybold’s radical social changes.

II. I Maybold wants to use a new organ (played by Fancy Day) instead of the Mellstock choir. Reuben Dewy proposes a deputation of the choir to confront him.

IV. The choir visits the vicarage and deferentially asks for a delay in the proposed change. Maybold politely equivocates and in the end they compromise.

V. The choir congratulate themselves and discuss Fancy Day’s secretive father.

VI. Dick has dinner with Fancy at her father’s house, where there is provocative chat about marriage and Mr Shiner. The eccentric Mrs Day re-sets the table whilst they are all eating.

VII. Dick helps Fancy in her lodgings, but his pleasure is spoiled by the arrival of Maybold.

VIII. Dick meets his father and seeks his advice on romance and Fancy. Reuben is naive and sceptical. He suggests that Dick should remain a bachelor. Dick writes a letter to Fancy, but fails to deliver it, then writes another.

Part the Third – Summer

I. Dick meets Fancy in Budmouth-Regis. Driving her back to Mellstock, he insists that she admit that she has feelings for him – and she does.

II. On the way back they stop for tea. Fancy thinks it might seem improper, so Dick proposes marriage to overcome such objections – and she accepts.

III. Fancy recounts a story of Mr Shirer’s attentions to her to make Dick jealous. Dick sees through the ploy, but Shirer has Mr Day’s blessing as a suitor.

IV. Dick and Fancy decide to confront Mr Day about their engagement – but they spend all their time deciding how to dress for the occasion.

Part the Fourth – Autumn

I. Frustrated by Fancy’s attention to mending her dress, Dick goes nutting alone – after which they are reconciled.

II . Dick and Shiner compete with each other whilst the Day family are gathering honey. Mr Day then explains to Dick that Fancy is beyond his social reach because of her education and potential dowry.

III. The ‘witch’ Elizabeth Endorfield advises Fancy on overcoming her father’s objections to Dick as a suitor.

IV. Fancy starves herself. Her father becomes worried and removes his objections to Dick as a suitor..

V. Fancy dresses attractively for her church organ debut. Dick acts as pallbearer at a friend’s funeral, then walks back home in the rain.

VI . Maybold proposes to Fancy, and she accepts him, but is upset by doing so.

VII. Next day Maybold meets Dick, who reveals that he is engaged to Fancy. Maybold writes to Fancy, asking her to reconsider, but his letter crosses with one from her withdrawing her acceptance.

Part the Fifth – The Conclusion

I . Fancy prepares for the wedding amidst much teasing from older male visitors. Former wedding customs are recalled.

II. Celebrations conclude outdoors under a tree. Dick and Fancy drive off to his new cottage in Mellstock. Fancy has not told him about Maybold.

Under the Greenwood Tree – characters

Richard Dewey	a young apprentice carter
Reuben Dewey	his father, a porter/carter
Willian Dewey	his grandfather
Fred Shiner	a farmer and churchwarden
Geoffrey Day	an estate manager
Fancy Day	his daughter, an educated schoolmistress
Arthur Maybold	the new young vicar

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Under Western Eyes

September 12, 2010 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

Under Western Eyes (1911) is one of the most political of all Conrad’s novels – even though a good deal of it takes place in drawing rooms in Geneva. It is simultaneously a critique of Russian absolutism and of its reactive counterpart, revolutionary terrorism. Conrad is essentially a political conservative, but his background as a Polish national, raised under Tsarist rule, with an international career as a seaman before adopting British nationality, gives him a healthy non-partisan view on the political systems he considers.

Joseph Conrad

Conrad is now well ensconced in the Pantheon of great modernists, and his novels Lord Jim and The Secret Agent are popular classics, along with impressive novellas such as The Secret Sharer and Heart of Darkness which are even more celebrated in terms of the number of critical words written about them.

Under Western Eyes – critical commentary

Under Western Eyes, as its title suggests, is very much a depiction of Russia from the point of view of western liberal democracy. The narrator is an Englishman who was raised in Russia (‘a teacher of languages’) who reminds readers at regular intervals that many of the surprising details of the plot are products of a Slavic regime that will seem irrational to Europeans.

There is plenty of scope within the novel for Conrad to vent his antipathy to a regime that put his own father in jail and the entire Conrad family into a form of internal exile. But he does so in an even-handed sense. The government is shown as absolutist, despotic, riddled with police spies, and completely neglectful of its citizens, the majority of whom live in a state of abject squalor. But he is equally critical of the revolutionaries, who he depicts as a collection of misguided, self-serving bigots at best, and at worst as psychopaths, unprincipled anarchists, phony feminists, and murderous brutes.

It’s a triumph of Conrad’s skill that Haldin, a politically motivated revolutionary who assassinates not only a government official but several innocent bystanders, emerges as the novel progresses as an almost Christ-like figure. Similarly, the central figure Razumov, whose only clear behaviour for the majority of the novel is to betray a colleague to certain death and then act as a police informer, in the end undergoes a convincing transformation motivated by a sort of spiritual remorse.

Irony

Joseph Conrad is a master of sustained dramatic irony. It’s easy enough for any skilled writer to drop ironic statements into a narrative, but to maintain an ambiguous attitude to a subject or character throughout an entire narrative requires a very skillful form of deception. It can only be done by creating a narrative that reveals (or appears to reveal) one thing whilst other elements reveal something else. (Vladimir Nabokov is another writer who uses this technique.)

His central character Fazumov is a student of philosophy who thinks he is perceptive and clever. The other characters in the narrative reinforce this idea because they mistake his taciturn nature for ratiocinative profundity. They have confidence in him partly because of his good looks and because they assume he is acting on some high moral principle. But in fact for most of the narrative he is a mediocrity, an empty shell, and a coward.

Much of the tension in the plot is generated by the sustained dramatic irony of Razumov’s position in relation to the people he confronts. The revolutionaries mistakenly believe he has been part of the terrorist plot and in league with Haldin, its true perpetrator. He is forced to dissemble so as to conceal the fact that he in fact betrayed Haldin to the police. He is also forced to conceal from them (though this is an easier task) that he has become a police spy, tasked with reporting on terrorist plots back to the government in Russia.

Victor Haldin’s sister Natalia has learned in a letter from her brother that Razumov is a friend who can be trusted. She has every reason to believe that the two young men were friends and she hopes that Razumov can throw some light on her brother’s last hours before being arrested. Razumov is squirming with anguish in every conversation he has with her, his voice reduced to a low rasping noise as he is forced to conceal the fact that he betrayed Haldin and brought about his death. The entire novel is heavily indebted to Dostoyevski, and to Crime and Punishment in particular. Razumov like Raskolnikov spends much of his time in discussion with the police and the revolutionaries, always on the verge of confessing or giving himself away.

Narrative

As usual in his work written in his late period, Conrad adopts a complex and very oblique manner in delivering his story. His outer narrator (an English ‘teacher of languages’) recounts events he has learned from reading a journal written by the central character Razumov, some of it composed in retrospect and some contemporaneously (‘with dates’). But as in his other late novels such as Nostromo and Chance, Conrad from time to time appears to forget the narrative structure he has created for himself, and he lapses into a traditional third person omniscient narrative mode.

He recounts the thoughts, feelings, and inner motivations of minor characters – psychological motivations which could not be known to anybody else. These are figures who the narrator could only know about from having read of them as characters in Razumov’s journal, and whose inner life would therefore be hidden, certainly from a limited character such as Razumov and doubly so from another person reading about them in his reminiscences.

These flaws are not so severe that they destroy one’s faith in the novel as a whole, but they do undermine our confidence in a narrator who makes so many claims of moral discrimination – most of them on Conrad’s own behalf – despite his efforts to distance himself from the teacher of languages. They make us wonder why Conrad devises such a complex strategies when he both contravenes their logic and fails to keep accurate control of them.

The first part of the novel is relayed to us in first person narrative mode by the teacher of languages. He is reconstructing the story from a journal (‘a journal, a diary, yet not that exactly in its actual form’) kept by Razumov, that has come into his possession after the events of the novel have finished. This does not stop Conrad from drifting into third person omniscient narrative mode, speculating about issues that it is very unlikely anyone would record in a diary.

In the second part of the novel the teacher of languages talks to Haldin’s sister Natalia, who recounts her meeting with Razumov. But the events are once more delivered in third person omniscient mode:

The dame de compagnie, listening where now two voices were alternating with some animation, made no answer for a time. When the sounds of the discussion had sunk into an almost inaudible murmur, she turned to Miss Haldin.

This sort of focalisation is simply not consistent with a narrative which is supposed to originate with Miss Haldin and is being passed on to us by the teacher of languages. There are many such instances throughout the novel. Conrad also makes comments on events which are illogical or asynchronous. The teacher of languages, speaking of Haldin, observes: ‘I did not wish indeed to judge him, but the very fact that he did not escape … spoke to me in his favour’.

But he already knows why Haldin did not escape. In fact he knows the entire story before he delivers it as the novel readers hold in their hands. There are also instances where the teacher of languages invents scenes he has not witnessed and nobody has described to him. In the middle of recounting the story relayed to him by Miss Haldin, he speculates ‘I could depict to myself Peter Ivanovitch rushing busily out of the house again, bare-headed, perhaps, and on across the terrace with his swinging gait, the black skirts of the frock-coat floating clear of his stout, light-grey legs.’

For long stretches of the narrative Conrad has to pretend that the teacher of languages is unaware of the dramatic irony of presenting Razumov as a ‘friend’ of Haldin – when in fact at the very moment of starting the tale he has all the facts at his disposal. But because he takes part in the events as a fictional character, large sections of the book are related from his point of view as a spectator at the time of the events being described. This form of narration is an illusion, a conjuring trick on the author’s part. But it must be said that Conrad fails to keep the balls in the air some of the time. It’s difficult to escape the impression that Conrad was simply not paying sufficient attention to his work, although similar problems occur in other of his late novels.

Genesis of the text

These issues are further complicated by the very complex manner of Conrad’s process of composition. He wrote the novel over a two year period, breaking off at one point to produce his novella The Secret Sharer (which also deals with a character who shelters a murderer). Under Western Eyes was composed in longhand to produce a first draft, and these pages were then typed up to produce a version that Conrad corrected by hand. The result was then in turn typed into what approximated to a finished version. One problem is that all three of these stages were taking place at the same time, and another is that even when the process was complete Conrad made huge cuts and changes to the story for its publication both in serial and then in single volume form. On top of that there were also English and American editions of the novel that contain differences.

The best available version of the text is in Oxford Classics, which is based on the first English edition. But there are lots of problems in the text which need copious footnotes and extracts from other versions to explain. At one point Conrad even gets the full name of one of his important characters wrong.

Dostoyevski

Joseph Conrad claimed that he did not like the work of Fyodor Dostoyevski – an opinion perhaps fuelled by his anti-Russian feelings in general, having been exiled from his Russian-controlled Poland with the rest of his family early in life. But the parallels with Dostoyevski’s Crime and Punishment (1866) are unmistakable.

Both the protagonists – Razumov and Raskalnikov – are students. They both commit crimes and are subsequently haunted by a fear of being found out, whilst at the same time they both feel a passionate need to confess. Both men contemplate suicide as a relief from their anguish. Both these protagonists confess to a woman they love, and in a sense both are ultimately redeemed by this love.

Under Western Eyes – study resources

Under Western Eyes – Oxford World’s Classics – Amazon UK

Under Western Eyes – Oxford World’s Classics – Amazon US

Under Western Eyes – annotated Kindle eBook edition

Under Western Eyes – eBook versions at Project Gutenberg

Under Western Eyes – PDF version at RIA Press

The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad: A Biography – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Routledge Guide to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad – Amazon UK

Notes on Life and Letters – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad – biographical notes

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex – tutorials, web links, study resources

Under Western Eyes – plot summary

The protagonist is a young Russian student of philosophy named Razumov, a conservative and career-motivated young man. He has never known his parents, but he is in fact the natural son of Prince K—, who pays for his education. One day he returns home to find a student acquaintance named Victor Haldin sheltering in his apartment. Haldin informs Razumov that he has just committed a political assassination. He has evaded the police and intends to escape. This news causes Razumov a great deal of unease, as he has no sympathy for Haldin’s actions and feels that he is in danger of being implicated in the crime. .

Haldin asks Razumov to contact a cab driver called Ziemanitch, who may be able to help Haldin escape successfully. Razumov fears that all he has worked for is slipping away, but after much soul-searching agrees to help Haldin – primarily with the intention of getting him out of his apartment as soon as possible. When Razumov finds Ziemanitch in a drunken stupor and unable to assist, he beats him unmercifully. Then, in a state of heightened outrage at being placed in such a difficult position, he decides to betray Haldin to the police.

Razumov goes to the one person that may be able to assist him – the official who arranges his sponsorship at the university. They go to the chief of police, General T – who agrees to keep Razumov’s name out of any official reports, because of his connection with Prince K—. Haldin is arrested, tried, and hanged. Razumov finds himself taking the first step to becoming a secret agent, although at this time he has no such intention.

The narrative then shifts to Geneva where Natalia and Mrs Haldin, the sister and mother of the executed revolutionary, have received the tragic news. In his last correspondence to his sister, Victor Haldin mentioned a certain serious young man named Razumov who was kind to him. Nathalie learns that Razumov is scheduled to arrive in Switzerland, and she impatiently awaits the arrival of her late brother’s final friend, hoping he might be able to shed light on Haldin’s last days.

In Geneva Razumov joins a group of exiled Russian revolutionaries who are planning an insurgency in the Baltic regions in an attempt to foment revolution in Russia. They regard Razumov as a hero, because they mistakenly think he was an associate of Haldin’s in the assassination plot. In fact he has gone to Geneva working as a spy for the Russian government.

All the publicly available evidence suggests that Razumov’s part in the arrest of Haldin can not become known. This is reinforced when news arrives that Ziemanitch has committed suicide. It is generally assumed that this was an act of remorse for betraying Haldin (which was not the case). But the strain of concealing his part in betraying Haldin causes Razumov a great deal of distress. This is compounded when he is forced to meet Nathalia and she asks him about the exact nature of his last contact with her brother.

This process of being interrogated is repeated with the key figures amongst the revolutionaries. At each stage Razumov is put under greater and greater psychological pressure and he feels more role strain and conflict of interests. He is being praised for a revolutionary act of terrorism that he did not commit, and his true political beliefs are deeply conservative.

However, powerfully affected by Natalia’s beauty and trustful nature, he finally breaks down and confesses to her. He then does the same thing with the revolutionaries, who punish him by bursting his ear drums. As a result of his deafness, he is run over by a street car and rendered a cripple. At the end of the novel, after her mother dies, Natalia goes back to Russia to do good works amongst poor people. Razumov has gone back too, but is not expected to live long.

Principal characters

I	The un-named outer narrator, ‘a teacher of languages’, who presents events and participates in the story.
Kyrilo Sidorovitch Razumov	A student of philosophy
Prince K—	Razumov’s protector, sponsor, and secret father
Victor Haldin	A student and revolutionary
Ziemianitch	A drunken cab driver
General T—	Government official to whom Razumov betrays Haldin
Kostia	A dissolute student with a rich father
Gregory Matvieitch Mikulin	Police investigator
Natalia Haldin	Victor Haldin’s sister
Mrs Haldin	Victor Haldin’s mother
Peter Ivanovitch	A revolutionary and feminist
Madame de S—	Russian society revolutionary sympathiser
Father Zosim	Priest and police informer
Tekla	Servant and former revolutionary
Sophia Antonovna	Revolutionary
Nikita Necator	Revolutionary assassin – and police spy
Julius Caspara	Magazine editor and anarchist

Joseph Conrad – biography

The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad offers a series of essays by leading Conrad scholars aimed at both students and the general reader. There’s a chronology and overview of Conrad’s life, then chapters that explore significant issues in his major writings, and deal in depth with individual works. These are followed by discussions of the special nature of Conrad’s narrative techniques, his complex relationships with late-Victorian imperialism and with literary Modernism, and his influence on other writers and artists. Each essay provides guidance to further reading, and a concluding chapter surveys the body of Conrad criticism.

Manuscript page from Heart of Darkness

The Complete Critical Guide to Joseph Conrad is a good introduction to Conrad criticism. It includes a potted biography, an outline of the stories and novels, and pointers towards the main critical writings – from the early comments by his contemporaries to critics of the present day. Also includes a thorough bibliography which covers biography, criticism in books and articles, plus pointers towards specialist Conrad journals. These guides are very popular. Recommended.

Major novels by Joseph Conrad

Nostromo (1904) is Conrad’s ‘big’ political novel – into which he packs all of his major subjects and themes. It is set in the imaginary Latin-American country of Costaguana – and features a stolen hoard of silver, desperate acts of courage, characters trembling on the brink of moral panic. The political background encompasses nationalist revolution and the Imperialism of foreign intervention. Silver is the pivot of the whole story – revealing the courage of some and the corruption and destruction of others. Conrad’s narration is as usual complex and oblique. He begins half way through the events of the revolution, and proceeds by way of flashbacks and glimpses into the future.
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The Secret Agent (1907) is a short novel and a masterpiece of sustained irony. It is based on the real incident of a bomb attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1888 and features a cast of wonderfully grotesque characters: Verloc the lazy double agent, Inspector Heat of Scotland Yard, and the Professor – an anarchist who wanders through the novel with bombs strapped round his waist and the detonator in his hand. The English government and police are subject to sustained criticism, and the novel bristles with some wonderfully orchestrated effects of dramatic irony – all set in the murky atmosphere of Victorian London. Here Conrad prefigures all the ambiguities which surround two-faced international relations, duplicitous State realpolitik, and terrorist outrage which still beset us more than a hundred years later.
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Joseph Conrad web links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Joseph Conrad at the Internet Movie Database
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Works by Joseph Conrad
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Unforgiving Years

October 22, 2009 by Roy Johnson

revolutionary hopes betrayed

Victor Serge is one of the most undeservedly neglected writers of the twentieth century. In his introduction to this recent translation of Unforgiving Years, Serge scholar Richard Greeman speculates that this might be because he cannot be easily categorised into any national literary tradition. Serge was born of Russian emigré parents in Brussels. He travelled widely throughout Russia and Europe as a revolutionary, and he wrote in French. Indeed, this linguistic fact may well have saved his life, because he was one of the few Oppositionists in Stalin’s reign of terror who was given permission to leave the Soviet Union – largely as a result of an international protest organised in France.

Unforgiving Years is one of his last great works, written in exile in Mexico around the same time as Memoirs of a Revolutionary and The Case of Comrade Tulayev. It covers the years 1939-1945 and is split into four distinct sections, each one of which illustrates a facet of ‘Midnight in the Twentieth Century’ as Europe was plunged into horrifying conflicts dominated (at first) by two conflicting forms of totalitarianism. The first section is set in Paris at an unspecified period just before the outbreak of war.

Two secret agents, Sasha and Nadine, decide they no longer believe in the infallibility of the Party and its policies, and they decide to escape – knowing that they will be hunted down and possibly assassinated by agents – as many people were at the time. Every move they make is fraught with danger, and they fear betrayal at every step – even from each other. The Spanish civil war has ended in defeat, the liberal democracies are capitulating before the threat of Nazism, and Stalin is purging everyone in his wake – even including leading intellectuals and his best military commanders, just when he will need them most.

In part two, one of their comrades is sent on a mission to a frozen Leningrad besieged by the Germans in 1941 – to endure unimaginable hardships in support of one corrupt regime resisting another. Although Serge’s sympathies are clearly with the Russian people and not with the Stalinist aparatchicks, he might not have known at the time of writing that Stalin turned out to be responsible for killing more Russians than Hitler.

Daria – the only character to appear in all four parts of the book – tries hard to be a loyal Party agent, but she cannot stop herself questioning the perverted logic of any means, no matter how corrupt, justifying some theoretical ends. She cannot rid herself of humane sympathies for the people she sees suffering around her. In a novelistic sense she stands in for Serge himself, desperately trying to locate a set of values which will accommodate both aspirations towards democratic socialism and a liberal humanism which she can hardly even admit to herself.

Part three takes place in a Berlin devastated by allied carpet bombing as the Reich nears its apocalyptic end. Daria has volunteered for a mission behind enemy lines, working as a nurse under an assumed identity. Serge’s skill in this section is to recount the events from the points of view of loyal (non-Nazi) Germans, their belief in the war almost at breaking point. All the official news is ridiculously optimistic propaganda, and the entire population is surrounded by officials with orders to root out and destroy the slightest signs of doubt in the Fuhrer’s omnipotent wisdom – just as was happening in the East.

Throughout all the horrendous conditions he describes, the Comrades all behave impeccably – with only their ideological doubts bringing them down to the level of normal human beings. Of course they reflect the intellectual journey which Serge had made himself. But it should be borne in mind that the saintly Daria/Erna, whilst sleeping with young men out of compassion and tending war-shattered enemies in her capacity as a spy behind the front line, is in fact reporting back to a regime which was systematically slaughtering its soldiers who had come back from fighting the Nazis because they might have been tainted with democratic ideas – and were actually accused of being German spies. The Comrades can be admired for their aspirations, but they clung on to their allegiances for too long – though of course it’s easy for us to say that now.

In part four Daria has finally broken ranks with the Party and escapes to the New World to start a new life. She eventually locates Sasha and Nadine, who have retired to run a plantation in rural Mexico – hidden away from everyone. Sasha has resolved his ideological dilemma by making a connection with the primitive forces of an almost prehistoric world, yet he still wonders ‘Where did we go wrong?’ Nadine has ‘retreated’ into a mild form of schizophrenia. But just as they have feared all along, the Party will not forgive recusants, and a visiting archeologist turns out to be a Stalinist agent. He infiltrates himself into their confidence, poisons Sasha and Daria, then moves on to his next assignment.

It’s possibly the bleakest of all Serge’s novels – and no wonder. He himself was still being pursued by Stalin’s agents when he died (of a heart attack) in Mexico in 1946. Anyone not used to his narrative techniques might find the story difficult to follow. He was trying to escape the form and the methods of the traditional bourgeois novel by downgrading the individual in favour of the mass – a theory he expounds in Literature and Revolution. Fortunately he never quite managed it, but since he also fused his narrative with a poetic lyricism, the results are magnificent.

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Victor Serge, Unforgiving Years, New York: New York Review Books, 2008, pp.341, ISBN 1590172477

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Ursule Mirouet

December 4, 2017 by Roy Johnson

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Ursule Mirouet was first published 1841, and forms part of Scenes of Provincial Life in the grand scheme of Balzac’s Comedie Humaine. The story is set in Nemours, just south of Paris in the years 1829-1837. As is common in many of the novels that make up Balzac’s gigantic picture of French society, it concentrates heavily on money, inheritance, property, and the fight between virtue and greed.

It’s worth noting that the story also includes elements of mystery and crime. In the years that followed Ursule Mirouet there was a vogue for such stories in the English literary world – known as ‘the sensation novel’. These were narratives featuring events designed to shock the reader. In this sense Balzac was the father to novelists such as Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and even later writers such as Thomas Hardy who included elements of mystery and crime in their work.

Ursule Mirouet – commentary

Choosing a text

During his short life Balzac wrote a prodigious amount – novels, stories, novellas, journalism, and even plays. His work appeared in newspapers, magazines, and as individual printed books. Because he is so famous as a classic novelist, his works have been translated many times, and they are available in any number of formats.

One thing is worth noting in making your choice of text. Balzac broke up the overflowing torrent of his original narratives into separate chapters with sub-titles. These individual headings were particularly suitable for newspapers and magazines, where unbroken blocks of text do not look attractive. But in various editions of his work produced later in book form, these sub-titles were sometimes omitted in order to save space.

This apparently innocent change can be a sad loss – for two reasons. The first is that the novels become more difficult to read without these chapter breaks. The second is that Balzac’s choice of sub-titles often present a form of satirical running commentary on the content of the events he describes. They are both an aid to interpretation and a source of amusement. They also reveal the structure of the work, which is not always apparent when the story is presented as one continuous block of text.

The Comedie Humaine

Balzac produced most of his works at fever pitch, racing to stay ahead of printing deadlines. This sort of compositional approach is not conducive to careful plotting and structure. His narratives are often erratic, backtracking chronologically on the story to fill in necessary details.

But at the same time Balzac certainly had in mind a grand design. There are in the whole Comedie Humaine more than two thousand named characters – and examples of two of them make brief appearances in Ursule Mirouet. Some have first been introduced in an earlier novel, others are due to become major figures in a later novel.

For instance the Abbe Chaperon’s frugal domestic household expenses are described as ‘more meticulous than Gobseck’s with his – if indeed that notorious Jew ever did employ a housemaid’. Gobseck is the central character in the 1830 novella that bears his name and is a notorious miser. Balzac throws in this allusion (plus a small instance of casual racism) as if confident that readers were familiar with his entire works.

Similarly, when Minoret wishes to develop Ursule’s skills ‘he now had an able music teacher coming down once a week from Paris, an old German named Schmucke’. This character Wilhelme Schmucke was to become one of the principals in Cousin Pons which was not published until five years later in 1846 – which indicates that Balzac certainly had this world of characters and events in mind.

In fact both Schmucke and the eponymous Cousin Pons are musicians in an orchestra at a theatre run by the impresario Felix Gaudissart, who was first introduced in a short story of 1833, The Illustrious Gaudissart.

When Savinien de Portedures is in Paris, his advising friends include Eugene de Rastignac, and Lucien de Rubempre – both of whom have appeared as major characters in earlier novels and would continue to rise socially in works that followed.

There is no need for a first-time reader to have knowledge of these secondary characters. Ursule Mouriet stands independently as a work in its own right – but a knowledge of their existence in other novels reinforces Balzac’s claim to be creating an in-depth world of French society. It might in the end be a work which he never managed to complete – but the attempt is impressive.

The Napoleonic Code

There is one feature in the background to events of this novel which may not be immediately apparent to readers unfamiliar with French society and its laws. Following the revolution of 1793 there was a radical overhauling of the legal system – which became known as the Napoleonic Code. This included a law specifying that property and capital must be inherited solely via family connections.

All real estate in France is governed by succession laws dating from 1804, which include compulsory inheritance provisions. Children are ‘protected heirs’ and cannot be disinherited. They receive a certain proportion of the estate, depending on their number and on the existence of a surviving spouse. It’s also worth noting that in the case of people who die without heirs, their property is swallowed up by the French government.

Today, if you are English with a million pounds in the bank, you can leave this money to whomever you wish by making a will. You can nominate as legatees your children, your friends, or even the Battersea Dogs Home. But in France, your money (and property) can only be willed to your family. This is an over-simplification of a very complex system.

Hence the significance of this law in the plot of Ursule Mirouet. Dr Minoret is a widower whose children have died in infancy. Ursule is his niece, but she is his illegitimate protected god-daughter – not a natural heir. His nearest legitimate relatives are remote members of extended family networks, whom he avoids socially. He has helped them all financially, but they are rapaciously anticipating his death and their inheritance of his wealth – to which they know they are entitled by law.

Much of the drama in the novel arises from their vulgar greediness, and their fear that Minoret might in some way outsmart them, depriving them of money they already think of as theirs, even before his demise. They are also frustrated by the fact that they do not know accurately the extent of his wealth – which they both over and under-estimate.

The weaknesses

There are three weaknesses in the plot of the novel which undermine its serious claims to greatness. The first is Balzac’s idiosyncratic belief in supernatural phenomena. He was well known for proselytising on behalf of the Catholic church and French royalty – but he also had a gullible streak which led him to give credence to mystic events.

The first instance of this ocurrs when the rational Encyclopedist Dr Minoret is suddenly converted to religious belief. He is persuaded by his old friend Bouvard’s demonstration of ‘Magnetism’ to overthrow the scientific basis of his beliefs in favour of an immediate conversion to Catholicism.

There is no demonstrated or argued connection between somebody’s apparently telepathic knowledge of events taking place elsewhere and a sudden religious conversion. Yet Balzac goes out of his way with a lengthy ‘digression’ to persuade us that this is reasonable. This interpolated lecture is itself something of an affront to literary cohesion and realistic credibility.

The use of supernatural-based plotting is then repeated when Ursule has nocturnal revelations of the exact circumstances of the theft of her guardian’s final will and instructions. These mystical plot devices are difficult to accept in the context of a narrative which is otherwise fundamentally based in social realism.

Balzac, as a former operative in a lawyer’s office, well knew the intricacies of law relating to wills, property, inheritance, and the Napoleonic Code that had sought to redress injustices perpetrated by aristocrats against the middle class. These form the legal niceties that make the novel a fascinating study in power, class, money, and legal rulings.

But the central dramatic incident of the novel is based upon a naive improbability. The sophisticated and intelligent doctor writes a will and last testament, making financial provision for both Ursule and her intended husband Savinien. This will is stolen and destroyed by the villainous heir Minoret.

In a novel bristling with lawyers, notaries, magistrates, and justices, it is virtually unthinkable that someone like Dr Minoret would not lodge a copy of such a will and statement of intentions with legal representatives. The idea of a single handwritten note tucked away in a bureau drawer is not really credible.

Not only that, but the details of the doctor’s government scrips are finally discovered in the most improbable manner. We are asked to believe that not only is the secret of the original theft revealed in a dream, but that the Abbe Chaperon then detects the imprint of three serial numbers that have been transferred to the pages of an old book. This permits both the money and its rightful destined owner to be traced via government records. We are offered plotting of a kind that belongs to the lower levels of serial narratives – or what we would now call ‘soap operas’.

There are similar weaknesses in the dramatic reversals of character that litter the final pages of the novel. For no persuasive reasons, some characters suddenly reform themselves. Minoret confesses his crime – and becomes a changed man. The snake-like Goupil who has spent the entire novel menacing Ursule suddenly repents of his crimes. Mme de Portenduere suddenly abandons her aristocratic disapproval when her son wishes to marry the daughter of an illegitimate band-master.

And if these improbable voltes face were not enough, there are also a couple of grand guinol flourishes to bring the narrative to its close. The unfortunate Desire Minoret, for no reason connected to the plot, is involved in a coaching accident, has both legs amputated, and dies as a result of the operation. Meanwhile his mother is so shocked by the event that she becomes deranged, it put into an insane asylum by her husband, where she dies shortly afterwards.

This is Balzac packing out La Comedie Humaine with ‘events’ at the expense of producing a well crafted novel. But it has to be said that his primary intent was the creation of a whole multi-faceted fictional world, and we are forced to accept his greatness where it emerged – along with these occasional blemishes.

Ursule Mirouet – study resouces

Ursule Mirouet – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

Ursule Mirouet – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

Collected Works of Balzac – Kindle – Amazon UK

Collected Works of Balzac – Kindle – Amazon US

Selected Stories – NYRB – Amazon UK

Selected Stories – NYRB – Amazon US

Ursule Miroet – plot synopsis

PART ONE

1. The Heirs are Alarmed

On a Sunday in Nemours in 1830, rich Dr Minoret goes to church – which is unusual. His relatives speculate about his intentions and worry about the possible effect on their inheritances.

2. The Uncle Worth a Fortune

Dr Minoret rises to fame during the revolution and then retires to Nemours. He moves into a refurbished house with Ursule, a baby girl. He acts with financial generosity towards his relatives, but keeps them at bay.

3. The Doctor’s Friends

The doctor befriends Abbe Chaperon, the virtuous and frugal parish priest and M. de Jordy an ex-army captain with a sad background. They form a quartet of friendship with the magistrate M. Bongrand. The doctor prefers their company to that of his relatives. His family regard him as a miser, and they speculate about the extent of his wealth.

4. Zelie

A relative Desire Minoret arrives by coach and notices Ursule as she emerges from church with her godfather the doctor. The relatives are surprised by his church attendance, and are obsessed by the potential repercussions on their inheritances.

5. Ursule

Dr Minoret becomes godfather to Ursule via a remote family connection. When his own children die, he raises Ursule as his own daughter. She is educated by his friends. When the captain dies he leaves her a small inheritance. She becomes a devout Catholic.

6. A Brief Digression on Magnetism

Dr Minoret is summoned to Paris by his old friend Bouvard to witness a demonstration of ‘magnetism’ given by a follower of Swedenborg. A hypnotised ‘medium’ provides a detailed account of Minoret’s house and Ursule’s growing love for a neighbour Savinien Portenduere.

7. The Double Conversion

Dr Minoret returns to Paris for further proof – and is given a detailed account of Ursule’s bedtime preparations. He drives back to Nemours and next day checks that they were indeed accurate. The whole of his scientific belief system is undermined; and he becomes a religious believer.

8. A Double Consultation

The notary Dionis explains to the family heirs that Ursule is the illegitimate niece of Dr Minoret and cannot inherit his money – unless he marries her. The heirs explore several self-interested alternatives. Dr Minoret and Bongrand discuss the same issue.

9. The First Confession of a Secret

Dionis visits Dr Minoret, who rejects the heirs’ plans. He then explains to Ursule why Savinien would not be a suitable match for her. Savinien is currently in a debtor’s prison. She has fallen in love with him at a distance.

10. The Portendueres

Savinien de Portendures goes to Paris, spends all his money in six months, and ends in a debtors’ prison. His friends advise him to return home and marry into money. His mother’s appeals for financial help are refused by her relatives. Abbe Chaperon advises her to make a request to her neighbour Dr Minoret.

11. Savinien is Rescued

Dr Minoret agrees to rescue Savinien from his debts and the prison. He goes to Paris with Ursule and raises the money. Savinien returns to Nemours and promises to reform himself

PART TWO

12. The Lovers Meet with Obstacles

Savinien’s mother snobbishly disapproves of Ursule, and resents having to borrow money from Dr Minoret, whom she regards as her social inferior. The doctor thinks it safer for the two families not to socialise under these circumstances.

13. A Betrothal of Hearts

Ursule and Savinien exchange letters and pledge their love. He joins the navy as the first step in his moral recovery. Ursule and the doctor travel to Toulon to see him embark for Algeria.

14. Ursule Becomes an Orphan Again

In 1830 the heirs gain more political power. The doctor spends money on luxuries for Ursule. Savinien distinguishes himself at the capture of Algiers. By 1834 the doctor is dying. The heirs express their greed openly by his bedside. He has prepared a will and a written statement of intent to protect Ursule, but the documents are stolen by his relative the postmaster

15. The Doctor’s Will

Dr Minoret left separate provisions fo both Ursule and Savinien, but the postmaster burns the documents. On the day of the doctor’s death the heirs immediately seize all the doctor’s property and expel Ursule from her home.

16. Two People at Loggerheads

Ursule is forced to buy a small house in Nemours. The heirs sue Mme de Portenduere for the money she owed to Dr Minouet. Postmaster Minoret buys and lives in the doctor’s old house. The heirs wonder where all the doctor’s money has gone. Minoret wants to drive Ursule out of Nemours to ease his conscience.

17. The Terribly Malicious Tricks that Can be Played in the Country

Goupil sends anonymous poisonous pen letters to Ursule and Savinien’s mother. Mme de Portenduere wants her son to marry a fellow aristocrat. Savinien refuses to marry anyone other than Ursule. Goupil threatens Ursule and arranges menacing recitals of music outside her house.

18. Two Acts of Revenge

Mme de Portenduere suddenly decides to forgive and accept Ursule, whilst Goupil just as unexpectedly confesses his persecution of Ursule. But he claims he was acting for Minoret. Savinien threatens Minoret and his son with a duel.

19. Ghostly Apparitions

Ursule has a dream which reveals all the details of Minoret’s theft. She reports this to the Abbe Chaperon, who then challenges Minoret with the details. Minoret denies everything. There is a second apparition, which has the same consequences

20. The Duel

Savinien arranges the duel with Desire Minoret, who confesses the theft of the doctor’s will to his mother, who tries to persuade Ursule to marry Desire.

21. How Difficult it is to Steal What Seems Easiest

Abbe Chaperon finds the imprints of the doctor’s government scrips in an old library book – and the theft is exposed. The money is restored and the duel called off. Minoret becomes a reformed man. Desire is in a coaching accident and has both legs amputated, then dies. Zelie Minoret goes mad and is placed in an asylum, where she dies. Ursule and Savinien are married then move to live in Paris.

Ursule Mirouet – characters

M. Minoret	postmaster at Nemours
Zélie	the postmaster’s acerbic wife
Desire Minoret	his self-indulgent son, a law graduate
Dr Denis Minoret	a rich retired former Encyclopedist
Goupil	a dissolute clerk, friend to Desire
Abbe Chaperon	parish priest, friend of Dr Minoret
Dionis	a local notary
Ursule Mirouet	niece and ward of Dr Minoret
Mme de Portenduere	a proud and aristocratic widow
Savinien de Portenduere	her son, a reformed rake

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revolutionary hopes betrayed

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Ursule Mirouet – commentary

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