Looking for:
Norman douglas south wind download |
Norman douglas south wind download.About this ebook
Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker. Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3. Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. Metropolitan Museum Cleveland Museum of Art. Internet Arcade Console Living Room. Books to Borrow Open Library. Search the Wayback Machine Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. One begins to appreciate things at their true value.
Your collar! Might I enquire—? Ah, my collar; the last vestige Yes, I am a bishop. Bishop of Bampopo in Central Africa. The youngest on the list, I believe. There were not many applicants for the place; the distance from England, the hard work, and the climate, you know—. He waxed thoughtful. Yes, continued Mr Heard. It is a phrase we apply in England to Colonial bishops who come back from their dioceses.
Southern politeness, or curiosity, overcame his fears. Perhaps this foreigner was fond of joking. Well, he would humour him. You will see our bishop to-morrow, he pursued blandly He comes over for the feast of the patron saint; you are lucky in witnessing it.
The whole island is decorated. There will be music and fireworks and a grand procession. Our bishop is a dear old man, though not exactly what you would call a liberal, he added, with a laugh. That is as it should be, is it not? We like our elders to be conservative. They counteract the often violent modernism of the youngsters.
Is this your first visit to Nepenthe? You will like it. The people are intelligent. There is good food and wine. Our lobsters are celebrated. You will find compatriots on the island, some ladies among them: the Duchess of San Martino, for instance, who happens to be an American; some delightful ladies! And the country girls, too, are worthy of a benevolent glance—. Saint Dodekanus.
He has a wonderful history. He knows more about the saint than I do; one would think he dined with him every evening. But he is a great hermit — Mr Eames, I mean. And it is so good of our old bishop to come over, he pursued with a shade of emphasis.
His work keeps him mostly on the mainland. He has a large see — nearly thirty square miles. How large, by the way, is your diocese? I cannot give you the exact figures, Mr Heard replied. It has often taken me three weeks to travel from one end to the other. It is probably not much smaller than the kingdom of Italy. That settled it. The conversation died abruptly; the friendly priest relapsed into silence. He looked hurt and disappointed. This was more than a joke.
He had done his best to be civil to a suffering foreigner, and this was his reward — to be fooled with the grossest of fables. Maybe he remembered other occasions when Englishmen had developed a queer sense of humour which he utterly failed to appreciate. A liar. Or possibly a lunatic; one of those harmless enthusiasts who go about the world imagining themselves to be the Pope or the Archangel Gabriel.
However that might be, he said not another word, but took to reading his breviary in good earnest, for the first time. The boat anchored. Natives poured out in a stream. Mr Muhlen drove up alone, presumably to his sumptuous hotel.
The bishop, having gathered his luggage together, followed in another carriage. He enjoyed the drive along that winding upward track; he admired the festal decorations of the houses, the gardens and vineyards, the many-tinted rock scenery overhead, the smiling sun-burnt peasantry.
There was an air of contentment and well-being about the place; something joyful, opulent, almost dramatic. And he wondered how long it would be before he met his cousin, Mrs Meadows, on whose account he had undertaken to break the journey to England. The Duchess of San Martino, a kind-hearted and imposing lady of mature age who, under favourable atmospheric conditions in winter-time, for instance, when the powder was not so likely to run down her face , might have passed, so far as profile was concerned, for a faded French beauty of bygone centuries — the Duchess was no exception to the rule.
It was an old rule. Nobody knew when it first came into vogue. On the contrary, he was inclined to think that it dated from yet earlier days; days when the Troglodytes, Manigones, Septocardes, Merdones, Anthropophagoi and other hairy aboriginals used to paddle across, in crazy canoes, to barter the produce of their savage African glens — serpent skins, and gums, and gazelle horns, and ostrich eggs — for those super-excellent lobsters and peasant girls for which Nepenthe had been renowned from time immemorial.
He based this scholarly conjecture on the fact that a gazelle horn, identified as belonging to a now extinct Tripolitan species, was actually discovered on the island, while an adolescent female skull of the hypo-dolichocephalous Nepenthean type had come to light in some excavations at Benghazi. It was a pleasant rule. It ran to the effect that in the course of the forenoon all the inhabitants of Nepenthe, of whatever age, sex or condition, should endeavour to find themselves in the market-place or piazza — a charming square, surrounded on three sides by the principal buildings of the town and open, on the fourth, to a lovely prospect over land and sea.
They were to meet on this spot; there to exchange gossip, make appointments for the evening, and watch the arrival of newcomers to their island. An admirable rule! For it effectively prevented everybody from doing any kind of work in the morning; and after luncheon, of course, you went to sleep.
It was delightful to be obliged, by iron convention, to stroll about in the bright sunshine, greeting your friends, imbibing iced drinks, and letting your eye stray down to the lower level of the island with its farmhouses embowered in vineyards; or across the glittering water towards the distant coastline and its volcano; or upwards, into those pinnacles of the higher region against whose craggy ramparts, nearly always, a fleet of snowy sirocco clouds was anchored.
For Nepenthe was famous not only for its girls and lobsters, but also for its south wind. As usual at this hour the market-place was crowded with folks. It was a gay throng.
Priests and curly-haired children, farmers, fishermen, citizens, a municipal policeman or two, brightly dressed women of all ages, foreigners in abundance — they moved up and down, talking, laughing, gesticulating. Nobody had anything particular to do: such was the rule. The Russian sect was well represented.
They were religious enthusiasts, ever increasing in numbers and led by their Master, the divinely inspired Bazhakuloff, who was then living in almost complete seclusion on the island. They called themselves the Little White Cows , to mark their innocence of worldly affairs, and their scarlet blouses, fair hair and wondering blue eyes were quite a feature of the place. The Duchess, attired in black, with a black and white sunshade, and a string of preposterous amethysts nestling in the imitation Val on her bosom, was leaning on the arm of an absurdly good-looking youth whom she addressed as Denis.
Everyone called him Denis or Mr Denis. People used his surname as little as possible. It was Phipps. With a smile for everyone, she moved more deliberately than the rest, and used her fan rather more frequently. She knew that the sirocco was making stealthy inroads upon her carefully powdered cheeks; she wanted to look her best on the arrival of Don Francesco, who was to bring some important message from the clerical authorities of the mainland anent her forthcoming reception into the Roman Catholic Church.
He was her friend. Soon he would be her confessor. Worldly-wise, indolent, good-natured and, like most Southerners, a thorough-going pagan, Don Francesco was deservedly popular as ecclesiastic.
Women adored him; he adored women. He passed for an unrivalled preacher; his golden eloquence made converts everywhere, greatly to the annoyance of the parroco, the parish priest, who was doubtless sounder on the Trinity, but a shocking bad orator and altogether deficient in humanity, and who nearly had a fit, they said, when the other was created Monsignor.
Don Francesco was a fisher of men, and of women. He fished ad maiorem Dei gloriam, and for the fun of the thing. It was his way of taking exercise, he once confessed to his friend Keith; he was too fat to run about like other people — he could only talk. He fished among natives, and among foreigners. Foreigners were hard to catch on Nepenthe. They came and went in such breathless succession. Of the permanent residents only the Duchess, always of High Church leanings, had of late yielded to his blandishments.
She was fairly hooked. Madame Steynlin, a lady of Dutch extraction whose hats were proverbial, was uncompromisingly Lutheran. The men were past redemption, all save the Commissioner, who, however, was under bad influences and an incurable wobbler, anyhow. Eames, the scholar, cared for nothing but his books. Keith, a rich eccentric who owned one of the finest villas and gardens on the place, came to the island only for a few weeks every year.
He knew too much, and had travelled too far, to be anything but a hopeless unbeliever; besides, he was a particular friend of his, with whom he agreed, in his heart of hearts, on every subject. The frequenters of the Club were mostly drunkards, derelicts, crooks or faddists — not worth catching. Carriages began to arrive on the scene. That of Don Francesco drove up first of all. He stepped out and sailed across the piazza like a schooner before the wind. But his discourse, usually ample and florid, as befitted both his person and his calling, was couched on this occasion in Tacitean brevity.
We have landed a queer fish, Duchess, he remarked. He calls himself Bishop of Bim-Bam-Bum, and resembles a broken-down matrimonial agent. So lean! So yellow! His face all furrowed!
He has lived very viciously, that man. Perhaps he is mad. In every case, look to your purse, Mr Denis. Sailing by the Mozambique. I wonder what he wants here? A bishop, and so yellow! He must have thought me very rude, he added. She was burning with ardour to be the first to introduce such a lion to the local society.
But fearful of making a faux pas, she said:. Then come and tell me. Not an African. Not unless he has a proper apron on. She always does, he laughed, when she wants me to do something for her. You do it, Don Francesco. He is sure to be the right one. They get yellow, out there. Sometimes green. Mr Heard was intercepted on his way to the hotel by the genial priest, and formally presented to the Duchess. She was more than condescending to this stern and rather tired-looking man; she was gracious.
She made all kinds of polite enquiries, and indicated the various sites and persons of interest; while Don Francesco, he observed, had unaccountably recovered from his sudden attack of bad humour on the steamer. And that is where I live, she said, pointing to a large and severe structure whose walls had plainly not been whitewashed for many long years.
Think of all the good he did for the island. Think of that frieze in the church! I have acres and acres of rooms to walk about in, she continued, addressing the bishop. You will perhaps be able to have a cup of tea with me today?
To take tea with the Duchess is an experience, a revelation, said Don Francesco in judicial tones. I have enjoyed that meal in various parts of the world, but nobody can manage it as she can. She has the true gift. You will make tea for us in Paradise, dear lady. As to luncheon, let me tell you in confidence, Mr Heard, that my friend Keith, whom you will meet sooner or later, has a most remarkable chef.
How delightful! And where, he added, laughing — where does one dine? I do not dine. Madame Steynlin used to give nice evening parties, he continued reflectively, and with a shade of sadness in his voice. Excellent little dinners! But she is so taken up with Russians just now; they quite monopolize her house.
Down there; do you see, Mr Heard? That white villa by the sea, at the end of the promontory. She is so romantic. That is why she bought a house which nobody else would have bought at any price. That little place, all by itself — it fascinated her. Bitterly she regrets her choice. She has discovered the drawbacks of a promontory. My dear Duchess, never live on a promontory! It has fearful inconveniences; you are overlooked by everybody. All the island knows what you do, and who visits you, and when, and why Yes, I remember those dinners with regret.
Nowadays I must content myself with a miserable supper at home. The doctor has forbidden dinners. He says I am getting too fat. My fortune, then, is a heavy load to bear. Mr Keith tells me I have seven double chins, three behind and four in front. He says he has counted them carefully. He declares that an eighth is in course of formation. It is too much for a person of my austere temperament. You need never believe a word Keith says, said the Duchess.
He upsets me with his long words and his — his awful views. He really does. I tell him he is the Antichrist, observed Don Francesco, gravely shaking his head. But we shall see! We shall catch him yet. The Duchess had no idea what the Antichrist was, but she felt sure it was something not quite nice.
If I thought he was anything like that, I would never ask him to my house again. The Antichrist! Ah, talk of angels—. The person in question suddenly appeared, superintending half a dozen young gardeners who carried various consignments of plants wrapped up in straw which had arrived, presumably, by the steamer.
Mr Keith was older than he looked — incredibly old, in fact, though nobody could bring himself to believe it; he was well preserved by means of a complicated system of life, the details of which, he used to declare, were not fit for publication. That was only his way of talking. He exaggerated so dreadfully. His face was clean-shaven, rosy and of cherubic fulness; his eyes beamed owlishly through spectacles which nobody had ever seen him take off.
But for those spectacles he might have passed for a well-groomed baby in a soap advertisement. He was supposed to sleep in them. Why, of course. Years and years ago. How is the place getting on? Better roads, no doubt. And better food, I hope! I was much interested in that little lake — you know? It seemed to have no outlet. We must talk it over. And I liked those Bulanga people — fine fellows!
You liked them too? Such a lot of nonsense was talked about their depravity! If you have nothing better to do, come and lunch tomorrow, can you? Villa Khismet. Anybody will show you the way. You, Denis, he added, you disappoint me. You look like a boy who is fond of flowers. And yet you have never been to see my cannas, which are the finest in the kingdom, to say nothing of myself, who am also something of a flower. A carnivorous orchid, I fancy.
I wish I could manage to come, replied Mr Heard. But I must look for a cousin of mine tomorrow: Mrs Meadows. Perhaps you know her? We all know Mrs Meadows. And we all like her. Unfortunately she lives far, far away; right up there, and he pointed vaguely towards the sirocco clouds.
In the Old Town, I mean. She dwells like a hermit, all alone. You can drive up there in a carriage, of course. It is a pity all these nice people live so far away. There is Count Caloveglia, for instance, whom I would like to see every day of my life. He talks better English than I do, the old humbug! He, too, is a hermit. But he will be down here tomorrow. He never misses the theatricals. Everybody seems to be a hermit hereabouts, thought Mr Heard.
And yet this place is seething with people! Oh dear no! It goes away, sometimes, in the afternoon. The sirocco, this year, has been most exceptional. Most exceptional! It blows, said the priest, when the good God wishes it to blow. He has been wishing pretty frequently of late. I am writing to your cousin, the Duchess remarked, to ask her to my small annual gathering after the festival of Saint Dodekanus.
Tomorrow, you know. Quite an informal little affair. I may count on you, Bishop? You too, Mr Keith? But no long words, remember! And not a syllable about the Incarnation, please. It scares me. It is, said Keith. But there is nothing commonplace about the lady. She is what I would call a New Woman. She has long ago passed the stage you have in mind, Bishop.
She is newer than that. The real novelty! Looks after the baby, and thinks of her husband in India. It takes the author three quarters of the book to get around this stuff, and ramp up to full scale farce.
I suppose this is a frustrating outing because it has so much: place, period, a penchant for the irreverent --and still comes to naught. The half-hearted stabs at interim drama hold to no plot path, and the pontificating rambles don't coalesce into a novel.
I do think this might make a great movie, because of all of those things, and also because it's such a terrible book. South Wind is a unique novel. Rather than presenting a traditional plot it seems like an olio or mixture of lectures and observations on various, often obscure, aspects of geology, climatology, history, morality, religion, and folklore, among other topics. The author's use of articulate characters confined to a restricted setting allows for ample airing of views and recalls the methods of English novelist Thomas Love Peacock, whose country house novels were once very popular.
The literary reference is to the magical potion given to Helen by Polydamna the wife of the noble Egyptian Thon; it quells all sorrows with forgetfulness; figuratively, nepenthe means "that which chases away sorrow" Odyssey, Book 4, v. However, it is usually considered a fictional version of the isle of Capri, about which Douglas wrote a series of scholarly pamphlets and upon which he was living when he completed South Wind.
It reminded me of Shirley Hazzard's literary meditation, Greene on Capri in which she also captured the essence of the island. She also noted the friendship between Graham Greene and Douglas in the late 's when Greene first began to frequent the isle, "he had the company, when he chose, of a handful of lively and literary resident compatriots.
Douglas even incorporated a version of his observations regarding the pumice stone industry of the Lipari Islands, the subject of one of his first publications.
An example may suffice: "Mr. Keith was a perfect host. He had the right word for everybody; his infectious conviviality made them all straightaway at their ease. The voluble Mr. All are perfectly adequate mouthpieces, but none emerges as rounded or particularly memorable outside of the group.
Greene himself generally wrote books of a darker character, but his lighter comic novel Travels with My Aunt bears similarities to South Wind. Douglas's erudite yet pleasant style reminds me a bit of Lawrence Durrell.
Needless to say this is an engaging novel with plenty of interesting characters that more than offset the lack of a robust plot. Read for free at Gutenberg OpeninG: The bishop was feeling rather sea-sick.
This annoyed him. For he disapproved of sickness in every shape or form. His own state of body was far from satisfactory at that moment; Africa—he was Bishop of Bampopo in the Equatorial Regions—had played the devil with his lower gastric department and made him almost an invalid; a circumstance of which he was nowise proud, seeing that ill-health led to inefficiency in all walks of life. There was nothing he despised more than inefficiency.
Well or ill, he always insisted on getting through his tasks in a businesslike fashion. That was the way to live, he used to say.
Get through with it. Be perfect of your kind, whatever that kind may be. Hence his sneaking fondness for the natives—they were such fine, healthy animals. Fine, healthy animals; perfect of their kind! Africa liked them to "get through with it" according to their own lights. But there was evidently a little touch of spitefulness and malice about Africa; something almost human.
For when white people try to get through with it after their particular fashion, she makes hay of their livers or something. That is what had happened to Thomas Heard, D. He had been so perfect of his kind, such an exemplary pastor, that there was small chance of a return to the scenes of his episcopal labours.
Anybody could have told him what would happen. He ought to have allowed for a little human weakness, on the part of the Black Continent.
It could not be helped. For the rest, he was half inclined to give up the Church and take to some educational work on his return to England. Perhaps that was why he at present preferred to be known as "Mr. This is a lost classic in which Douglas invents an island in the Mediterranean called Nepenthe on which gather a collection of vacationing and or expatriate foreigners who interact with the natives and each other in comic ways while interrogating philosophy, art, and murder.
Douglas has a knack for absurdity. In a series of curiously amoral conversations among the island dwellers, temporary and otherwise, we learn of a scirocco that brings out the worst in everybody; a saint who took her vows be This is a lost classic in which Douglas invents an island in the Mediterranean called Nepenthe on which gather a collection of vacationing and or expatriate foreigners who interact with the natives and each other in comic ways while interrogating philosophy, art, and murder.
In a series of curiously amoral conversations among the island dwellers, temporary and otherwise, we learn of a scirocco that brings out the worst in everybody; a saint who took her vows before she turned three years old and caused over witnessed miracles; a rain of blackening ash from a nearby volcano that blankets the island though when the volcano blows, the islanders are thrilled that it kills only people on the mainland and see it as proof of their virtue ; and an Episcopalian missionary bishop who surrenders his faith.
Nearly every character has a singular if not sympathetic back story. Other than the volcano and the murder, there is not a great deal of plot, but the novel is nevertheless dense, funny, and memorable.
A beautifully written book about nothing. Think of it as a classical Seinfeld. My dear bishop! Under a sky like this. Vices, vices, and more vices. That azure sky, assisted by the restless winds of the sirocco, the Mediterranean mentality, and a community of morally dubious ex-patriated residents made the island of Capri a hothouse for vice in the early 20th century.
It was also a hothouse for high culture and the finer things in life. Artists, duchesses, poets and counts, they came from all over Europe to the playground of Tiberius. Norm "Vices. Norman Douglas was one such resident. He calls the place he made his home Nepenthe in this nigh on perfect novel, but he wasn't really trying to fool anybody.
The book begins with Me. Heard, the Bishop of Bampopo, paying a visit to the island to see his niece and take a quick tour of what Mr. Keith, an aged bachelor and scholar of "disinterested thought", calls 'the chronique scandaleuse of Nepenthe.
How so? Purely down to the alluring abilities of the author. Norman Douglas writes like the Blue Grotto poured out onto the page. For starters, as already stated, it has virtually no plot whatsoever. And then you have to be susceptible to an author with the vocabulary to describe the president of the drinking club as a man of 'stolid pachydermatous obliquity' , the waters of an extinct fountain one of twelve, each with their own history detailed in one of the book's funniest passages as 'anti-blepharous and amygdaloidal' in nature.
I for one am highly susceptible to that kind of thing, especially when an author can use that kind of language without being in the least bit gauche and does so with his tongue firmly in his cheek throughout. I feel like I should include the following paragraph in its entirety, lengthy though it is. He's glib, for sure, but not without wisdom, and he has lots to say. Here's one of his surrogates, Count Caloveglia, on why the people of the Mediterranean have things better than the people of the North: 'That a man should wear himself to the bone in the acquisition of material gain is not pretty.
But what else can he do in lands adapted only for wolves and bears? Douglas wants to intoxicate you with his refinement so that, like Mr. Heard, you too will catch yourself 'in the very act of condoning vice. The online biography I read about Douglas after I finished the novel strongly suggested that he was a pederast. Judging by the sensibility revealed in the book he no doubt considered his behaviour as Hellenistic rather than horrific.
I hope you can look beyond those scandalous biographical rumours and still read the book, though I admit such prior knowledge probably would have put me off.
Maybe I should have left that information out of the review, but having discovered it I simply bring myself to. All I can say in conclusion is that if that was part of his lifestyle he left it out of this story. The vice on display is all of the conventional and legal kind, the recognisably human stuff, as chronicled by Monsignor Perrelli, the author of Antiquities of Nepenthe, 'Those quaint streaks of credulity, those whimsical blasphemies, those spicy Court anecdotes dropped, as it were, in the smoking room of a patrician club'.
That's also a pretty good description of South Wind itself. A third of the way through: the chapters are organized casually, as is, occasionally, the narration "Napoleon, or somebody, once remarked 'L'etat, c'est moi.
But the story has a definite shape; we meet various characters in conversation with others, then eventually get thei Before beginning: In a review of one of Douglas's later novels, Waugh wrote that in SOUTH WIND he had "achieved, with superb facility, the only great satirical novel of his generation. But the story has a definite shape; we meet various characters in conversation with others, then eventually get their backstories.
Also: the pornographic cover on the Capuchin edition is so far entirely inappropriate. The humor is inconsistent. Halfway: the worldly, morally suspect Jesuit is still the most entertaining speaker. The worldly atheist Mr Keith is a bore to everyone readers, other characters but the author. Denis the college graduate gets some nice under his breath one-liners.
I expect great things from the Count, who is shaping into a reputable villain. The three disreputable villains President of the club, corrupt judge, wealthy foreigner Mr Muhlen have no purchase on the imagination, though I want more of their ally, the Vice President of the club. The protagonist an Anglican bishop on leave is dull, but don't forget Chesterton's defense of Nicholas Nickleby: he's just an excuse to meet everyone else.
The women are all interesting, but underdeveloped. I figured out the identity of the naked lady on the cover. Something more should be said of the narration: it's of uneven quality. The dominant note in the background chapters is whimsy, as in the matter of fact descriptions of the "Good Duke's" jovial cruelties.
I'd call it irony, but it's not at all subtle. Here's one of the better examples: "Nobody, probably, has done more to foster pious feelings towards their island patron than the Good Duke Alfred, who, among other things, caused a stately marble frieze to be placed in the church The frieze indeed was admired so unreservedly, so recklessly, that the Good Duke felt it his duty to remove the sculptor's eyes and on second thoughts his hands as well, in order that no sovereign should possess works by so consummate a master of stonecraft.
There the disciplinary measures ended. He did his best to console the gifted artist, who was fed, henceforth, on lobsters, decorated with the order of the Golden Vine, and would doubtless have been ennobled after death, had the Prince not predeceased the sculptor. Finished: More of the same, though I was wrong about the Count.
I rather like the millionaire prophylactic-manufacturer. The book is a strange mix of clear satire and half-serious irreverent disquisitions; sometimes funny, never approaching hilarious.
If we reckon it sincere, the Bishop's spiritual journey is incredible from start to finish. That of Denis, being less ambitious, is believable. I can see the island of Nepenthe, and it is lovely. If Waugh is right, I see no reason to read any satires written by Douglas's contemporaries. My grandmother was turning 80 years old and she decided to celebrate the milestone by renting a house on the island of Capri, in Italy.
I took a leave of absence from work and stayed the entire month with her, traipsing over every square inch of one of the most historic, trendy, and beautiful islands in the world. When I was preparing for that trip, my Uncle Lou gave me several guidebooks for the island and a copy of this book.
However, for some reason, I didn't end up reading the book on the trip, and instead just filed it away on my TBR pile. Fast forward to August , when my father decided to celebrate his own 80th birthday with a special family party on the island of Capri.
This was just a four day journey, but I made a point of packing this book and dedicated myself to reading it while spending two weeks in Italy. Of course there is not much likeness between them. The island of Capri is real, and Nepenthe is two-thirds imaginary.
And the remaining third of it is distilled out of several Mediterreanean islands; it is a composite place. A few pages later, at the start of the novel, Douglas includes a passage describing Nepenthe in which he makes it clear that Nepenthe is NOT Capri!
They had talked of Nepenthe, or rather Mr. Muhlen had talked; the Bishop Thomas Heard as usual preferring to listen and to learn. Like himself, Mr. Muhlen had never before set foot on the place. To be sure, he had visited other Mediterranean islands; he know Sicily fairly well and had once spent a pleasant fortnight on Capri. But Nepenthe was different. Forgive this reader for thinking that Norman Douglas doth protest far too much. Even so, after reading the book, I'm not sure it matters whether Nepenthe is Capri or not.
My guess is that it is, and I further guess that several of the characters in the book are based on real characters who visited Capri in the early s. What is significant about the novel is the period in which it was written - during the horrors of World War I.
The book provided an escape from that era with its band of eccentric characters who vacillate between hedonism and anti-religious attitudes.
For many years this book was a major seller and influenced several great writers including Graham Greene. Perhaps because I read it nearly years after it was written, most of the humor and reasoning was lost on me. Some of the views of the world seemed everything from anachronistic, to elitist, to offensive, to just plain silly. And so, after eagerly waiting more than 20 years to read the book, it took me a plodding two weeks to finally finish it.
I enjoyed this a great deal. I didn't know much about the author except that when the cookery writer Elizabeth David encountered him living in exile n Capri she thought him amusing company for a waspish old pederast. Well, this is certainly waspish: the satire has a cruel edge as effective satire must , and it is frequently laugh-out-loud witty though sometimes teetering into absurdity.
It's also old - that is to say, in style and spirit it is clearly the kind of thing from a different age. I never met my Grandmother's older brothers, but they were wealthy bachelors of a dilettante bent who wore orchids in their buttonholes. I feel sure they knew and loved this book. The pederasty is of course very muted, but the clues are there between the lines. The character one senses that the author fancied most is a 19 year old English boy called Denis.
Why Denis and not Dennis? Is it because the Frenchified spelling is a clue that we are dealing with someone of dodgy predilections - q. E M Forster's even more dodgy hero Maurice - who had he been christened Morris would surely have become a Chartered Accountant with a wife and two children and lived in dreary suburbia?
Denis is interesting but one of the natives - Count Calevoglia - is my favourite. Like everyone else in this book, he is something of a fraud - or at least has something to conceal.
Uncovering the secrets of the characters' inner lives is one of the pleasures of this novel. That, and the colourful sense of place, the fizzing erudition or cod-erudition , and the discourses on art, pleasure, and aesthetics.
There are weaknesses. Most of the characters speak in the same register, so that one feels they are all really manifestations of the author, and it is sometimes difficult to tell them apart, especially early on. There is not much of a plot; until the last few chapters, it is hard to find a plot at all. But I got a very pleasant splash of Mediterranean colour and sunlight from this book, and - short of jetting off to the southern hemisphere - what better way to escape from a cold, wet, dismal English January?
He loves the sound of his own voice and simply cannot write a single sentence where 22 paragraphs will do just as well. I reckon the book would have been vastly improved if pages were cut. As it was up until the last 90 pages I was going to award this two stars. This is probably less relevant today.
Much of the book is taken up by lengthy philosophical dialogues between the characters. I was most fascinated by his analysis of a Catholic Church working hand in glove with the Mafia. Douglas fled London due to a gay sex scandal while writing this and there is speculation he censored himself to avoid throwing paraffin on the flames.
The book only goes as far as throwing very coy and ambiguous hints on sexual matters. I looked into this because Nabokov mentioned admiring it some of his letters to his wife though he later reported that he heard Douglas was a "malicious pederast".
I can imagine N appreciating the carefully crafted world of characters, each with their relationships with one another, all being subtly moved around. It also reads like the anti-Magic Mountain which I'm sure amused him N loathed Mann , with characters endlessly engaged in long-winded philosophical discussions, only here Douglas is I looked into this because Nabokov mentioned admiring it some of his letters to his wife though he later reported that he heard Douglas was a "malicious pederast".
It also reads like the anti-Magic Mountain which I'm sure amused him N loathed Mann , with characters endlessly engaged in long-winded philosophical discussions, only here Douglas is obviously satirizing them rather than holding them up for the edification of the reader.
And as a satire, it's certainly one of the most acerbic, sarcastic novels I've ever read. While never laugh-out-loud funny, it's generally pretty amusing; characters bounce off each other in imaginative and entertaining ways; just about everything is held up for ridicule.
Unfortunately, it can also get pretty repetitive and tiring, with no real form or structure and it just kind of ends eventually. And the aforementioned philosophical satires get particularly tiresome. It's still enjoyable enough, but I don't see it as being worth N's high praise. Apparently South Wind was a pretty big deal and controversial back in the 20s, and since then it's been almost completely forgotten.
Returning from Africa, the Anglican Bishop of Bompopo detours to the little island of Nepenthe, where he finds some charming natives and an assortment of interesting and eccentric expatriates. As the Nepenthean year slides gently along, the expatriates go on about their lives, living in a dreamland, and maintaining illusions that keep them happy about themselves.
This book is the work of George Norman Douglas , Scottish author and diplomat, and is considered by some to be his mast Returning from Africa, the Anglican Bishop of Bompopo detours to the little island of Nepenthe, where he finds some charming natives and an assortment of interesting and eccentric expatriates.
This book is the work of George Norman Douglas , Scottish author and diplomat, and is considered by some to be his masterpiece. The edition I possess is the Modern Library one, which includes a short introduction by the author, in which he defends his book against the charge that it does not possess a plot. Well, in truth, this book is not plot driven - it is a sort of theater of the absurd tale, in which people's hypocrisy, inanity and stupidity are laid bare.
Quite a fun tale, I must admit that it's been a while since I have enjoyed a book quite so much! A tale of a mediterranean island and various foreigners who have ended up there.
Its a veritable paradise although with a dark edge. The climate induces a relaxation of the morals and many people who come there are fleeing their past. As the story progresses we learn more about each of these characters and their background aswell as the rather bloody history of the island itself. The author really captures that sense of freedom, change and unreality you tend to get when you go on holiday. There' A tale of a mediterranean island and various foreigners who have ended up there.
There's a lot to like about the story and i only have one problem with it and thats the structure. This is not a smooth read, in fact its downright lumpy with protuberances in strange places. To begin with it seems as if we have a main character but he's lost for large portions of the book. The author goes on abrupt tangents in order to give you character background and island history.
Its a very uneven and sometimes quite annoying method of storytelling. Overall though still good. I have gone back and forth with my rating of this book between 2 and 3 stars. This book, about expatriates and natives on the Island of Nepenthe really Capri , contains numerous funny set pieces involving a wide variety of "characters. The book was written in , and given the times WWI I can see why it was popular and escapist.
In that sense, it reminds me of Hilton's Lost Horizon, in setting forth an paradise free from the restr I have gone back and forth with my rating of this book between 2 and 3 stars. In that sense, it reminds me of Hilton's Lost Horizon, in setting forth an paradise free from the restrictions of popular morality.
But ultimately, the weaknesses I see in the novel resulted in the lower rating. The "plot" such as it is--the physical and moral recovery of a CofE Bishop, moves slowly. Long stretches of the book are taken up with long discussions with the major characters about life, etc.
It is true that there is much humor in the book, but it is handled in no way as well as the novels of Evelyn Waugh or Aldous Huxley.
This social satire, set on an imaginary Italian island, was on my reading list for some time until a copy fell into my hands. It took a couple goes to get through. There are quite a few characters to track and most of the book consists of conversation as an Anglican Bishop eventually lets loose his moral compass--or resets it--and finds himself approving of murder.
Character sketches and anecdotes about a mixture of ex-pats, tourists and locals on an Italian island c. Mostly pointless. Jan 15, Edward rated it liked it. This novel , while at first seemingly contemporary, hardly mentions World War I.
It concerns a group of eccentric and self-absorbed English for whom a wider world is remote. All of the action takes place on the island of Nepenthe, apparently a fictitious stand-in for Capri, where Douglas spent a good portion of his life. He takes a drolly comic look at the inhabitants and a a satire, it is a comment on how blind the inhabitants are to the outside world.
The title is apt as it refers to the This novel , while at first seemingly contemporary, hardly mentions World War I. The title is apt as it refers to the sirocco, the hot dry wind that blows north from the Mediterranean, bring with it dust, not just dust that obscures physical vision but symbolically, intellectual and moral vision as well.
The novel begins on board a ship bound for Nepenthe and describes Thomas Heard who prefers to be called Mr.
Heard, although he is coming from Africa where he was Bishop of Bampopo. He is half inclined to give up the Church and seems to be approaching a moral and spiritual crisis.. But before this point is reached, the novel leisurely describes life on Nepenthe.
No comments:
Post a Comment