COMPTON MACKENZIE AND HIS WORK By Sheila Kaye-Smith
OR a week I have gazed across the the most important of the arts. He Fsea at Compton Mackenzie's island would give that honor to music, though home of Jethou. Every day I have he himself is no performer and serves planned to cross over, and every day I his Goddess but in the most humble have been defeated, either by fog or capacity. wind or the failure of the only available Because he has kept out of the main motor boat on my own island. It is no stream of London literary life and kept joke, this Great Russell between Sark himself free of the philosophies and and Jethou, by no means to be negoti conventions of literary people, there is ated by small craft in bad weather; and about his work an originality and a the Little Russell on the farther side be freedom which can scarcely be found tween Jethou and Guernsey is not elsewhere in modern English literature. much better. Perhaps the aloofness is the conse Compton Mackenzie has chosen to quence of the originality and freedom exile himself upon his island, and this rather than their cause, but no matter is typical of both the man and his work. how these two may stand in relation to As a rule the average English man each other as cause and effect, there is novelist can be found either in Chelsea no denying that Compton Mackenzie's or Bloomsbury, if he is not at the Sav position in modern English literature is age Club. Going from one literary unique. Even those who do not ad dinner party to another, you meet in mire him as a novelist cannot accuse evitably the same group. If you fail to him of either tameness or convention get a word with Mr. J. D. Swinnerpole ality, or of following in the steps of at the P. E. N. dinner you are not too other men. It is perhaps this very greatly discouraged, because you are independence which is responsible for sure to meet him tomorrow evening at certain looks askance that he gets from the After Dinner Club. But not so some quarters. The modern critical with Compton Mackenzie. If you tendency is all for comparison and were to miss him at one dinner you classification, but what are you to do would probably not get a chance to see with a man who one year writes a him again for a year at least, since his trilogy founded entirely on religious appearances in London are few and experience, and the next produces a fleeting, and mostly connected with serial for a penny daily? Personally I what is at present the great interest of think it is glorious to be able to do both, his life, which is not literature but the and Mr. Mackenzie is the only living gramophone. author who can. This, again, is characteristic. Be When we look back on his career we cause he is himself a novelist, Mr. see that from the beginning he has been Mackenzie does not therefore believe a man unbound-—^unbound either by that novel writing or even literature is style or school or subject or environ- 391
PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 392 THE BOOKMAN ment. His first novel was historical, but it is even more challenging and an elegant and charming recreation of compelling. The critics, of course, the eighteenth century in Bath. '' The found more to criticize. "Carnival" Passionate Elopement" is a complete had been received with almost unani success in its own line. It attracted mous applause, it was both enthralling much attention and enthusiasm at the as a novel and glamorous as a work of time of its publication, and the literary- art. It was almost impossible to world waited for Compton Mackenzie criticize it, for the glamor had this re to repeat himself. But where many markable quality, that it caught the another author would have been con critics too. But there was less glamor tent to recreate, as his second effort, the and less thrall in "Sinister Street". eighteenth century at Tunbridge Wells The detailed story of the youth and or the seventeenth century at Oxford, adolescence of a man "who will even the author of "The Passionate Elope tually become a priest", it has its ment" leaped straight into modern languors and its disappointments. theatrical life and gave us in "Carni Michael Fane is more alive at some val " the story of a typical showgirl of periods than at others. Also, in the today. necessary discarding of plot Mr. Mac "Carnival" astonished where "The kenzie may have too defiantly ignored Passionate Elopement" had delighted. rules of construction. Mr. Mackenzie's knowledge of theatri Nevertheless the book is one of the cal life enabled him to give of it a pic most momentous novels published in ture which was sometimes almost too England this century, and one which realistic for modern taste, yet over it all has the distinction of having started a he cast the glamor which is peculiarly new school in English fiction. For his, and which in my opinion is his some time after it appeared the libra greatest gift. Perhaps the glamor is ries were stuffed with the life stories of more obvious in "Carnival" than in young men who went to school and later novels —the lights are brighter then to college, and were abandoned by and cruder. Personally I do not know their authors on the threshold of adult how the book would reread. It is a life and love. This fashion has natu tribute to it and the thrill of my first rally passed, but "Sinister Street" may impressions that I have never dared to be said to have brought the "cradle to make the attempt. I could not face grave" novel once more among us — the risk of being disillusioned in "Car the story which is a straightforward nival", and that is perhaps as great a record of a man's or woman's life rather compliment to the author as to say that than the pattern of its sensations and I had read it again and again. complications. This type of novel is of "Carnival" made Compton Macken course one of the oldest types, but it zie a famous novelist, and all literary had died out during the Nineties of last England and America awaited his third century, when French standards of novel. technique prevailed. Mr. Mackenzie revived it with all the advantages of an "Sinister Street" is in many ways his improved technique, and may be said most remarkable achievement. By its thus to have given us our modern very nature (it was published in two picaresque. volumes of about 200,000 words each), it is not so well constructed or so satis His fourth novel, "Guy and Paul factory as a work of art as "Carnival", ine", was also in a sense a new experi-
PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED COMPTON MACKENZIE AND HIS WORK 393 mfent, though it made use of characters dealing with life in the University, and and situations which had already been certainly when dealing with the adven dealt with in "Sinister Street". Mr. tures in the underworld of a young man Mackenzie, by the way, is one of those seeking a laidy he once loved; but it is a authors whose characters continue his very different matter to cast a glow as lifelong friends; they are not discarded of magic and faery over the story of a when the book is finished but are re very ordinary young man's abortive introduced and used again and again. engagement to a clergyman's daughter. On the advantages of the method I There is no sensation, very little inci have never been able to make up my dent, the characters have nothing mind. Sometimes it is a disappoint startling about them either in the way ment rather than a delight to meet a of vice or virtue. One might say that much loved character on another occa the book did not contain enough inci sion, but on the other hand it has given dent even for a short story, and yet it a new reality to fiction ever since Bal triumphs. Not that it is in any way zac wrote "La Comedie Humaine" — merely a tour de force; it is a genuine and Mr. Mackenzie's novels are a piece of literary construction and real comedie humaine. Michael Fane, marks perhaps the climax of Mr. Mac Maurice Avory, Sylvia Scarlett, Father kenzie's artistic achievement. Dorward, and other personalities link There is a gulf fixed between "Guy up their diverse styles into a character and Pauline " and his later work, a gulf istic unity. "Guy and Pauline" has which yawns across the work of many a strong affinities with "Sinister Street", man, or indeed woman, novelist of this in that it is the story of a young Oxford period, the gulf of the years 1914 to man whom we have met before in the 1918. With Mr. Mackenzie it is dug earlier novel; but in many ways it dis deeper than with some; one would say appointed the admirers of the first that he has a greater sensitiveness to book owing to the extraordinary con environment and contemporary life straint of its subject and situations. than most novelists, hence a necessity Put baldly, "Guy and Pauline" is in his seclusion. After the war and his the story of a young Oxford man, not in experiences in it — chiefly in connec very comfortable circumstances, who tion with the Gallipoli campaign — it becomes engaged to a clergyman's was impossible for him to write as he daughter. For financial reasons their had written before; but his love for his engagement drags on without any defi old characters remained, and we find nite plans for marriage and is finally that his first novel after the silence is a broken off. That is all the story, reconstruction of the life of Sylvia Scar spreading through over three hundred lett, that strange tantalizing woman pages. Those who wished for sensa who had appeared for baffling glimpses tion, for the startling element at work in "Sinister Street". in "Carnival" and "Sinister Street", Frankly, the novel was a disappoint were naturally disappointed; none the ment. The war seemed completely to less to many of Mr. Mackenzie's critics have changed Mr. Mackenzie's style, "Guy and Pauline" is his masterpiece, and reading "Sylvia Scarlett" was like because here his wonderful sense of witnessing a cinematograph film very glamor has really found its own. It is hurriedly shown. Sylvia rushes and all very well to be glamorous when deal darts about the Balkans and the Near ing with theatrical life, or even when East so that one scarcely seems to get
PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 394 THE BOOKMAN near enough to her for observation, and which could be described as humorous, at the end of the book one feels one so there had been religion in his books knows her less than at the end of before he came to write a novel which '' Sinister Street''. Rather in the same could be called religious. In the three style is "Sylvia and Michael" which novels which form the complete "Par followed. Looking back on them, I am son's Progress" the interest is exclu not sure whether the fact of his having sively religious. They are the spiritual produced two novels like cinemato history of a new Michael Fane — one graph films is not another instance of Mark Lidderdale. Brought up and the artistic sensitiveness of Mr. Mac priested in the Anglican Church, he be kenzie's mind; to have sat down and comes involved in the more swash written deliberately and brightly in the buckling element of the Anglo Catholic midst of those catastrophic years, or Movement in the Church of England, even immediately after them, would and finally, after certain experiences in have argued an insensitiveness which the war, revolts from Anglicanism and he most definitely does not possess. joins the Church of Rome. It is en He followed the two Sylvia novels tirely a religious history, the human with again a new experiment. "Poor element being sternly subordinated; Relations" and its companion novel indeed where Mr. Mackenzie intro "Rich Relatives" are novels of humor duces what is known as "human inter alone. There has always been humor est" it is almost contemptuously, as if in Mr. Mackenzie's books; but here are as a sop to his readers. This may ac two novels entirely given up to it, and count in part for the book's failure to he shows himself a master of the comic reach many; it is too exclusively ecclesi character and the comic situation. astical. There are, however, certain rare moments when the ecclesiastical His books seem now to follow each becomes the spiritual, and if those other more rapidly. "The Vanity could have been matched by others in Girl" is a not very successful return to which the spiritual had met the human, the style of "Carnival". "The Seven the book could scarcely have failed to Ages of Woman" is curiously colorless reestablish Mr. Mackenzie with his for Mr. Mackenzie. He seems to be old audience. The politics and shop of growing hurried, almost impatient with religion must necessarily appeal only to himself and his art, to be unable to find a few; its wider issues as well as its a subject in which he is truly interested. most humble effects have power to Then suddenly he returns to his old rouse the many. Against this, one is manner and the old glamor reasserts ' astonished by Mr. Mackenzie's techni itself, though not for every man to see, cal knowledge of the movements with in his^religious trilogy "The Parson's which he deals. It is another point in Progress". which he differs from the majority of With this trilogy many parted com novelists of his day, whose ignorance of pany with Mr. Mackenzie, but to some current religious thought is profound of the critics it is at last the long wished and who almost invariably misuse for return to his earlier manner. At ecclesiastical terms, ignoring the fact last he has found a subject in which he that faith, like fiction, has its proper is himself deeply interested and with outward expression and technique. which he is profoundly competent to deal. Just as there had been humor in On looking into the future, I feel that his novels long before he wrote a novel Mr. Mackenzie has already indicated
PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED PRODIGAL 395 the lines on which he will finally and inevitably surprise one. I feel that he fully express himself. Since "The is bound sooner or later to produce Parson's Progress" he has given us something almost shockingly good; be "The Old Man of the Sea" and cause, though perhaps his work has not "Coral", the first a new departure, the yet achieved either the success or the second a fresh return to the " Carnival" greatness of some, he has capacities manner. But the new way is but a which no other living writer possesses. bypath and the old seems now defi At the present moment he is still a nitely at an end. With his under young man, and in spite of his earlier standing of modern life, of human love, successes I do not feel that he has writ and of that religious impulse which is ten himself out or even attained his both the synthesis of all human emo highest achievement. When he really tion and its unifying link with worlds does his best it will be something en beyond it, he has it in his power to tirely beyond the matter of small emo write a novel greater than any which tion and careful technique that has English literature has yet produced. come to be regarded as the best among It is this which makes him so pro us. He will probably achieve this suc foundly interesting even when he is not cess by a return to his earlier method, giving us his best work. Personally I to the method most characteristic of would rather read a bad novel by him — that is, the method of "Sinister Compton Mackenzie than a good novel Street". But the return will not be in by any other modern novelist you could the same way as the start, for he has name. He has about him a vital traveled far in the meanwhile and will quality which one knows some day will bring his sheaves with him.
PRODIGAL
By DuBose Heyward
OME day, when the stern seeker in my brain S Has ceased to drive me stumbling through the dark. Dropping dead cinders for each faint new spark, Only to see the new one wax and wane; When all my dreams are numbered with the slain; And wisdom, that egregious patriarch Has told his last half truth, and left me stark; I shall go home, I shall go home again.
Laughter will greet me, waiting in the hall; And friendships will come trooping down the stairs. Sweet as old rose leaves wrinkled in a jar. Battles and loves will move me not at all. There will be juleps, billiards, family prayers. And a clean passport for another star.
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