74 Morris Joyce Cary

JOYCE CARY – LIBERAL TRAdiTIONS ‘Britain is profoundly a liberal state. Its dominating mind has been liberal for more than a century.’ These words were written by a novelist whose works Prisoner of Grace, Except the Lord, and Not Honour More explore the British liberal tradition against the backdrop of the great electoral landslide which gave the Liberal Party its overwhelming majority in 1906. Chester Nimmo, the main protagonist of this ‘political trilogy’, is a member of the resulting New Liberalism which took hold as a result. John Morris celebrates the work of the English novelist Joyce Cary, whose work is rooted in Liberal ideas. 16 Journal of Liberal History 74 Spring 2012 JOYCE CARY – LIBERAL TRAdiTIONS orn in Londonderry in The African Witch was made a Book and guide the soul – politics does 1888, Arthur Joyce Lunel Society choice, and he was finally the same thing for the body. God Cary was named after recognised as a fine novelist with is a character, a real and consistent his mother Charlotte the publication of Mister Johnson in being, or He is nothing. If God did Joyce in the Anglo-Irish 1939, which was also based on his a miracle He would deny His own Btradition of his class. Following the experiences in West Africa. nature and the universe would sim- Irish land reforms of the 1880s, the Though now largely forgot- ply blow up, vanish, become noth- family, now stripped of its lands, ten, Joyce Cary was the author of ing’. 4 Cary’s conviction instead was settled in London, where Charlotte many novels which were as highly that beauty and human love proved died of pneumonia in 1898 when regarded as those of his contempo- the existence ‘of some transcenden- Joyce was nine years old and his raries Graham Greene and Evelyn tal spiritual reality with which a brother Jack just six. Waugh. ‘The author of Prisoner of man must relate himself harmoni- Schooled first at Tunbridge Grace was a “different” writer from ously if he is to find satisfaction’.5 Wells then at Clifton, at the age of most of his contemporaries, differ- Cary’s interest in politics – and sixteen Joyce spent a short period ent in his outlook, his gifts, his vari- his ideas about the roots of English in Edinburgh and Paris in order ety, and in the themes of his books,’ character in the Liberal and prot- to explore his skills as a painter. writes Walter Allen. ‘If, as I think estant traditions – resulted in an Returning to England in 1909, he is true … England and the English introduction to the Liberal Book joined Trinity College, Oxford cannot be understood except by ref- Club by George Orwell, who was where he read law. Somewhat of an erence to the working of the Prot- familiar with his novels. The club’s adventurer, he found a new voca- estant, Nonconformist spirit, then a committee included Osbert Sitwell, tion in the service of the British reading of Cary … is essential to the and among its patrons were Augus- Red Cross during the First Balkan understanding of the English’.1 tus John, J. M. Keynes, Comp- War in 1912. The King of Monte- Though the titles of the politi- ton MacKenzie, A. A. Milne and negro himself decorated Cary for cal trilogy give away a religious C. P. Snow. The Liberal Party had valour for his efforts in assisting the theme, Cary’s primary intention invited Cary to write a treatise as wounded. A memoir of his experi- was also to explore ‘the whole Lib- early as 1931, but this new introduc- ences – his first attempt at writing, eral angle and its religious basis’.2 tion resulted in a volume originally which contains several sketches and ‘Cary was a profoundly religious to have been entitled ‘Liberty and diagrams – was published posthu- spirit of that intensely individual Freedom’. Published as Power in mously in 1964. and protestant kind which cannot Men, it became the club’s selection Applying for a post in the find fulfilment in any corporate for May 1939, billed as ‘an examina- Northern Nigerian political ser- body; he had to carve out his creed tion of the failures and disappoint- vice in 1914 so that he could afford by himself and for himself. Brought ments of democracy in practice’. In to marry, Cary headed for new up as an orthodox Anglican, he lost it, Cary makes the point that both adventures but was invalided back all religious faith in early manhood totalitarianism and anarchy lead to to England in 1915. Following his to find a new one in mature life. It the same thing – to the erosion of permanent return in 1920 (his wife was not orthodox; it was not Chris- freedom and personal choice, and to deplored his long absences), he set- tian in any substantial sense. Cary tyranny. Democracy, on the other tled in Oxford. Throughout the did not identify God with Christ hand, rather than being some sort 1920s he wrote extensively, but was or with any kind of personal spirit’.3 of state of political bliss, is in fact not to publish his first novel,Aissa Indeed Cary admitted, ‘No church a never-ending argument about Saved, until 1932 at the age of forty- would have me’. Religion, he said ideas and direction: a debate which four. Critical acclaim did not really in a 1954 interview he gave in the Joyce Cary simply propels rather than settles come, however, until 1936 when Paris Review, ‘is organized to satisfy (1888–1957) anything for too long; a constant Journal of Liberal History 74 Spring 2012 17 JOYCE CARy – liBERAL TRAdiTIONS Joyce Cary and leader, but breaks with him ‘over his wife Gertrude ways and means’,9 objecting to the love of power over men which he detects in Marxist philosophy. As Power in Men explores these ques- tions, so too does the trilogy tell of Nimmo’s experiments with various ideologies: ‘Cary makes an analy- sis of what meanings are necessary to political creativity. The argument of Power in Men is therefore relevant to the action of the trilogy, and in the broadest possible and most fundamental ways. That Power in Men and the novels rise in different directions from the same source should make us more alert in either case to what Cary’s vision of the human situation ultimately is,’ writes Hazard Adams in his 1963 introduction to Power in Men.10 Intrigued by the idea of returning to Africa, in late 1942 Cary agreed to travel to Tanganyika to take part in a project for a propa- conflict of ideas in a world of ‘per- After the threat of invasion receded, ganda film that the Ministry of petual creation’. however, there was room for other Information was producing. It was In Power in Men Cary traces, ideas, including his most ambitious one of several designed to keep point by point, the meaning of lib- yet. To be a Pilgrim, the central part up morale, to rally the Empire to erty and of man’s creative power, of Joyce Cary’s first trilogy (which the war effort and to highlight the which, he writes, is realised through includes what is arguably his most constructive features of the Brit- education and industry. Identifying famous novel The Horse’s Mouth, ish Imperial system. The direc- the absence of a true measurement apart from, perhaps, Mister John- tor, Thorold Dickinson, had been of happiness in Jeremy Bentham’s son) is the memoir of Tom Wilcher alerted to Cary’s knowledge of formula – the ‘greatest happiness for who reflects on a life overshadowed Africa through a new treatise, the greatest number’ – Cary instead by his brilliant brother Edward, a The Case for African Freedom (Cary presents an alternative: the greatest Liberal member of parliament since believed in African gradualism), liberty of the greatest number, meas- 1906. ‘The essence of To be a Pilgrim which had just been published. ured by pay, leisure and education. is the sense of life as pilgrimage,’ Although Cary knew nothing Building on the old definition of wrote Cary, ‘and the whole back- about films, he undertook to write liberty as the ‘absence of restraint’, ground of the book is democratic the script with the director. It was or what Cary calls ‘freedom from’, history as facet of the protestant not until after they had set sail for he defines freedom as ‘the provision evangelical mind …’.7 Edward east Africa on The Duchess of Rich- of the means to self-fulfilment’, or appears to be the prototype of mond, however, that either real- ‘freedom to’. Chester Nimmo, the central char- ised they had left the script behind. Power in Men was the last selec- acter of the ‘political’ trilogy which Talk of films was a new world to tion of the Liberal Book Club to the author began after the war, Cary, who asked cameraman Des- reach print before the outbreak of in which he explores in detail the mond Dickinson (no relation) who war led to the abandoning of the life of another fictional MP whose his favourite film star was. ‘Greta project. Though Cary was unhappy meteoric career as a Radical ends Garbo,’ was the reply. ‘Oh?’ Cary with the editing of the work, the in failure when the Liberals were asked. ‘Who’s she?’ The crew were TLS commented on its chapter and trounced in the 1922 elections. staggered to realise that Cary knew verse style as an excellent idea if the In this, the second trilogy, Cary hardly anything about film and had book were ‘to become the philo- explores the liberal and protestant in fact seen very few.11 sophical basis for Liberalism reborn’ traditions of English politics.

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