F. Scott Fitzsgerald on Dunsany

While I'm doing a bit of Dunsany spotting, seems like a good time to revisit the mention of Ld D. in F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel, THIS SIDE OF PARADISE [1920], written just when Dunsany's reputation was at its height. I drew attention to this in passing in my dissertation, but in context with Wilson's passing reference it might take on a little added significance. In any case, I think it bears repeating.

The passage comes in Book I: The Romantic Egotist, [Chapter] II: Spires and Gargoyles, which deals with the main character's college days. In one of several reading lists* dealing with what Amory Blaine is devouring at different times in his life. Amory's college reading includes, most significantly, his discovery of Oscar Wilde, whom he'd only known previously as the person said to have inspired a character in the Gilbert & Sullivan comic opera PATIENCE [1881]. So taken is he with THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY that he practices epigrams in the mirror and one of his friends takes to calling him "Dorian". Here's the list:

"So he found 'Dorian Gray' and the 'Mystic and Somber Dolores' and the 'Belle Dame sans Merci'; for a month was keen on naught else. The world became pale and interesting, and he tried hard to look at Princeton through the satiated eyes of Oscar Wilde and Swinburne -- or 'Fingal O'Flaherty' and 'Algernon Charles', as he called them in precieuse jest. He read enormously every night -- Shaw, Chesterton, Barrie, Pinero, Yeats, Synge, Ernest Dowson, Arthur Symons, Keats, Sudermann, Robert Hugh Benson, the Savoy Operas -- just a heterogeneous mixture, for he suddenly discovered that he had read nothing for years."

[Penguin Classics edition (1996), p.

Then, after a bit more about Wilde, comes the exchange that most interests me:

One day Tom and Amory tried reciting their own and Lord Dunsany's poems to the music of Kerry's graphophone.

'Chant!' cried Tom. 'Don't recite! Chant!'

Amory, who was performing, looked annoyed, and claimed that he needed a record with less piano in it. Kerry thereupon rolled on the floor in stifled laughter.

'Put on "Hearts and Flowers"!' he howled. 'Oh, my Lord, I'm going to cast a kitten.'

'Shut off the damn graphophone', Amory cried, rather red in the face. 'I'm not giving an exhibition'.

[ibid, p. 48]

--It's interesting, to me at least, that Fitzgerald singles out Dunsany's poems (of which no collection was issued until 1929) rather than his short stories (which work very well indeed read aloud) or his plays (which tend to be short and 'poetic' but not metrical). The idea of reciting to phonograph accompaniment made me wonder if this was a carryover from the silent movies of the day, which were always accompanied by music (anything from a house orchestra to a piano player, depending on how grand or otherwise the theatre).

Also interesting, but not in a good way, is the editor's decision about which of these authors to identify in the notes he provides in the back of the book. Thus Patrick O'Donnell, the editor, glosses Wilde, Keats, Chesterton, Yeats, Synge, Dowson, and Symons [p. 263], having already glossed Shaw from an earlier mention; Barrie gets glossed on a later appearance over a hundred pages later. The rest-- Pinero, Sudermann, Benson, Gilbert & Sullivan ("Wasn't the comic opera, 'Patience', written about him?")--go unidentified, as does Dunsany. O'Donnell may have felt that Pinero and Gilbert & Sullivan were well-known enough to need no identification, but that seems unlikely, since he identifies the far more well known Keats, Yeats, and Shaw. Or he may have felt these five were unimportant, though in that case his selection criterion seems off to me. Personally, I'd say it's the less well known figures, like Sudermann (once a well-known playwright whose reputation has since faded) who need the gloss more than a Nobel Prize winner like Yeats. To fail to identify Dunsany means that whatever point Fitzgerald was making by making his hero an enthusiast for Ld D. at one time in his life is lost.

Alas.

--John R.

*Fitzgerald was fond of these, apparently; cf. the lists of books he drew up for Sheilah Graham to education herself by reading, since published in COLLEGE OF ONE [1967]

Signs of Spring

Can spring really be coming to the Pacific Northwest at last?

The signs look hopeful.

--the violets* have bloomed, and the strawberries in the little planter on the balcony have their first blossoms.

--last week, we saw the biggest rainbow I remember. And a strong, vivid one too, that lasted quite a while. Given Barfield's riff about the rainbow as an icon of participatory reality, it was interesting discussing with Janice what we were each seeing. For me, there was a strong band of red-orange, a yellow line, a thin streak of blue, and a bright band of green. She, on the other hand, could see the purple, and I gathered saw the individual colors more distictly. Then, interestingly enough, by focusing where she pointed I cd see the purple too, but that made the blue disappear altogether and the green shrink to a narrow ribbon. V. interesting!

--the first yellow jacket of the year scouting out the area around the hummingbird feeder.

--and we finally made our way back to Point Defiance Zoo & aquarium, for the first time in several years, to see the baby clouded leopard cubs. They were adorable; just eight weeks old. We timed our arrival to see them at feeding time: first a little wet catfood, then bottles of milk, then some playtime, after which they zonked out. Just like any kittens, albeit each is already about the size of a full-grown housecat already (well, not Feanor perhaps, but then he is a big cat). We saw their mother, too, with her long fluffy tail about the length of the rest of her hanging down from where she was lounging up in the branches.

Also noteworthy were the otters, a show-off puffin splashing about, getting to actually see the arctic foxes (they've usually been in hiding), the red wolves (which we have in Arkansas but are quite distinct from the grey wolves in most of the U.S., looking more like big coyotes), three walruses (one of whom is enormous), and the peacock. Turns out they no longer have beluga whales -- who knew?

-- as for the weather, it keeps swinging back and forth between warm and sunny and the cool, windy, and wet. Sometimes both multiple times in the same day . . .

--John R.

current reading: COMPLETE PLAYS of Lord Dunsany (currently I'm up to IF)

also: IN THE SHADOW OF THE DREAMCHILD: A NEW UNDERSTANDING OF LEWIS CARROLL by Karoline Leach (recommended at last year's Kalamazoo by Doug and Dimitra; they were right)

current audiobook: SILVER ON THE TREE (the final book in The Dark Is Rising series)

current dvd: R.O.D.tv and SUSPENSE: THE LOST EPISODES

*transplanted from the yard in Magnolia before the house was knocked down, and carried back as one of my more unusual in-cabin personal items on a flight.

Dirda on Doyle (and Dunsany)

So, quite by chance on Monday* we learned that the author of a new book on Arthur Conan Doyle (called ON CONAN DOYLE) wd be giving a talk or reading Tuesday night up at Elliott Bay Books, one of our favorite (but rarely visited, due to location) Seattle bookstores. We made plans to attend, if all went well, but in the event weren't able to make it -- not surprising, considering the workday schedule, traffic, early darkness, &c. A pity, but so it goes.

Curiously enough, my attention had been drawn to Dirda just a few days before in a post to the MythSoc list by Wendell Wagner, who included the quote:

"What Conan Doyle is to the detective story, Dunsany is to the modern fantasy: the Master"

That's a statement I agree with completely. There were detective stories before Doyle (e.g., Poe's Dupin), and there was fantasy fiction before Dunsany (cf. Wm Morris). But each man remade the genre, so that everyone who came after was influenced by their achievement.** It's rare to come upon a right-minded individual who feels as I do on this point, so I'm naturally am curious to find out more, being both a Dunsany scholar (one of the few people who can claim that, I suspect) and a longtime admirer of the Holmes stories.

I haven't been able to find a copy of Dirda's book yet, but thanks to Google Books I've now discovered that most of his discussion of Lord D. focuses on the Jorkens stories. This is rare; most people who know Dunsany at all know him through his so-so novel THE KING OF ELFLAND'S DAUGHTER; those who really like him know of his early short stories (the ones written between 1905 and 1916), which are superb,*** and perhaps a few of his plays like A NIGHT AT AN INN. But, on further reflection, Dirda's praise of the Jorkens tales makes sense; they're club stories, and probably the most Holmesian of Dunsany's work (in the 22B Baker Street sense, not in the content)**** In this he's in agreement with S. T. Joshi, who also admires the later Dunsany and once chided me for my agreeing with Dunsany himself (and Lovecraft, for that matter) that Dunsany's later work marked a significant falling off. Dunsany is one of those people who kept on writing long after he'd run out of things to say, and his lesser later works damaged his reputation and got in the way of folks rediscovering his earlier masterpieces.

Still, I'm glad to see Dirda give praise where praise is due, and look forward to reading his book about Doyle -- a fascinating, talented, and gullible man who created a character more memorable than himself.

--John R.

*as in I saw part of the Seattle newspaper lying abandoned at a table when I stopped in a coffee shop at Kent Station to have some tea while I waited for Janice to get off work, and glancing through it saw a piece about Dirda's pending presentation.

**one might extend the example to include Wells for science fiction, though there the match is not quite so tight (there's Verne to consider).

***the best body of fantasy short stories in English, by far; perhaps Borges and Kafka are his peers if you go multilingual.

****Dunsany did write some fair detective stories himself, the most famous of which, TWO BOTTLES OF RELISH, Alfred Hitchcock declared the story he'd most wanted to do for ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, but been unable to because the mores of the time wdn't have stood for it (e.g., the murderer getting off scot-free, quite aside from other unpleasant details we need not go into).

Lord Dunsany dies

So, I just found out from a posting on the MythSoc list* that Edward Carlos Plunkett, twentieth baron Dunsany, died on Tuesday (May 24th), aged 71.

http://www.meathchronicle.ie/news/roundup/articles/2011/05/24/4004570-death-of-edward-plunkett-lord-dunsany/

I never met this Lord Dunsany (Edward Carlos), the half-English/half-Brazilian grandson of the author, though I did meet his father the 19th baron (Captain Randal), during the time I was researching Lord Dunsany the writer (Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Lord Dunsany, 18th baron). But I'm grateful to Edward Carlos, who opened up the vault and let a number of unpublished works by his grandfather finally see the light of day -- an unpublished novel (PLEASURES OF A FUTUROSCOPE), a volume of plays (THE GINGER CAT AND OTHER LOST PLAYS), a collection of short stories (THE LAST BOOK OF JORKENS), and a few misc. pieces ("The Emperor's Crystal" -- obscurely published and long unavailable). This doesn't exhaust the unpublished material (e.g., the sequel to his verse-dairy THE YEAR, simply called ANOTHER YEAR) but it was welcome for those of us who'd read everything available to go back to that well for a few more times. And so, a belated thanks to someone I didn't know, who cut through to tangle that'd kept Dunsany publications in limbo for decades.

--John R

*thanks to Dale Nelson for this -- after all, how many of us wd have otherwise missed it because, like me, we don't read THE MEATH CHRONICLE?

WORMWOODIANA

So, while I'm on a Doug Anderson kick, I wanted to celebrate the recent launching of Doug's collaborative blog. Doug is not just a superlative scholar but better than anyone I know in finding out things about obscure dead authors (we were once on a panel together of that name at Wiscon along with several other people, and his author was more obscure, though not more dead, than any of the other offerings).

A while back Doug starting doing reviews in a little journal called WORMWOOD. Now, as of sometime in June, he's started a blog to which he and other contributors make postings similar to the fare in the journal, although so far there seem to be fewer reprints of old impossible-to-find stories from decades ago and more articles and notes about such works--which seems to me to make the blog a good complement to the physical journal.

I haven't read all the posts yet, the blog having been already in progress when I discovered it, but already there's been at least one real gem: Sidney Sime's colour illustration of the first JORKENS story back in 1926, which features Sime's portrait of Dunsany himself as Jorkens. So far as I know, this is Sime's only portrayal of his longtime partner. It thus makes a nice accompaniment for Dunsany's intensely moving word-portrait of Sime, which he wrote upon learning of Sime's death in obscurity and poverty in the early days of World War II, the first and last sentences of which read

"We have lost, in a time of losses, when loss is nothing out of the ordinary, a genius, whose stupendous imagination has passed across our time little more noticed by most people than the shadow of a bird passing over a lawn would be noticed by most of a tennis party."

"And now that vast imagination has left us, having enriched our age with dreams that we have not entirely deserved."

(THE GHOSTS OF THE HEAVISIDE LAYER [1980], pages 168-175)


I first saw this illustration in Edinburgh during a research trip in May 1987 but have never been able to get a copy (the Milwaukee Public Library's records state that they have one, but it's in storage in their sub-sub basement, and I was never able to retrieve it on mulitple efforts). Thus, I am delighted to find it posted here (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW8IRexvyuHZYwdv5ZzFI36OvtDbazx7Yj_i1tNMjq0ljndPItUE3iWbUAzi5Xyo2mN_tOtfvKixr9cyiWUNvj2A1k5-4XaPDiDiZYlhbYAZYxltT20JRuWySEtfWw90Zwlt6n2t8IKfc/s1600-h/Sime+Jorkens+1926.jpg). Quite aside from its associational value, it has intrinsic interest in that it reveals that by 1926 Dunsany had already gone entirely grey, if not white -- I suspect from the stresses of the war years, particularly his harrowing experiences of 1916 (which had such an impact on his work that I devoted a whole sub-section of a chapter to it in my dissertation). I had always assumed that the pictures of Dunsany that appear as frontispieces to the three volumes of his autobiography -- PATCHES OF SUNLIGHT [1938], WHILE THE SIRENS SLEPT [1944], & THE SIRENS WAKE [1945] were contemporaneous with those books' publications. I now believe they are instead pictures of Dunsany as he appeared during the years covered by those volumes, so that (for example) the photograph of Dunsany that appears in the middle volume -- my favorite image of him, the only one which makes him look like an author -- probably shows him as he was at age forty, when the book opens, rather than nearing sixty, as he was when it was published.

And all this from just a single post from a newly launched blog. WORMWOODIANA promises great things, and I've already added it to my short list of sites I check regularly; when I have time, I'll have it added to the list of recommended links on my website. Well done Doug (and associates)!

--John R.


In the meantime, here's the link:

http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/

Dunsany VII: Where the Tides Ebb & Flow (part one)

This is a longer one, so I'm going to break it up over three posts. The story comes from A DREAMER'S TALES [1910], the first of Dunsany's three great masterpieces (the others being THE BOOK OF WONDER [1912] and THE LAST BOOK OF WONDER [1916]) which also contains the classics "Bethmora", "Blagdaross", "The Hashish Man", and "The Field".


...............................

"WHERE THE TIDES EBB AND FLOW"

I dreamt that I had done a horrible thing, so that burial was to be denied me either in soil or sea, neither could there be any hell for me.

I waited for some hours, knowing this. Then my friends came for me, and slew me secretly and with ancient rite, and lit great tapers, and carried me away.

It was in London that the thing was done, and they went furtively at dead of night along grey streets and among mean houses until they came to the river. And the river and the tide of the sea were grappling with one another between the mud-banks, and both of them were black and full of lights. A sudden wonder came in to the eyes of each, as my friends came near to them with their glaring tapers. All these things I saw as they carried me dead and stiffening, for my soul was still among my bones, because there was no hell for it, and because Christian burial was denied me.

They took me down a stairway that was green with slimy things, and so came slowly to the terrible mud. There, in the territory of forsaken things, they dug a shallow grave. When they had finished they laid me in the grave, and suddenly they cast their tapers to the river. And when the water had quenched the flaring lights the tapers looked pale and small as they bobbed upon the tide, and at once the glamour of the calamity was gone, and I noticed then the approach of the huge dawn; and my friends cast their cloaks over their faces, and the solemn procession was turned into many fugitives that furtively stole away.

Then the mud came back wearily and covered all but my face. There I lay alone with quite forgotten things, with drifting things that the tides will take no farther, with useless things and lost things, and with the horrible unnatural bricks that are neither stone nor soil. I was rid of feeling, because I had been killed, but perception and thought were in my unhappy soul. The dawn widened, and I saw the desolate houses that crowded the marge of the river, and their dead windows peered into my dead eyes, windows with bales behind them instead of human souls. I grew so weary looking at these forlorn things that I wanted to cry out, but could not, because I was dead. Then I knew, as I had never known before, that for all the years that herd of desolate houses had wanted to cry out too, but, being dead, were dumb. And I knew then that it had yet been well with the forgotten drifting things if they had wept, but they were eyeless and without life. And I, too, tried to weep, but there were no tears in my dead eyes. And I knew then that the river might have cared for us, might have caressed us, might have sung to us, but he swept broadly onwards, thinking of nothing but the princely ships.

At last the tide did what the river could not, and came and covered me over, and my soul had rest in the green water . . .

....................
(to be continued)
--JDR

Dunsany VI

This is a story for when it's rained all day, and it rained all day yesterday, and it's going to rain all day tomorrow. Once again the text comes from FIFTY-ONE TALES [1915]

.............................

"The Trouble in Leafy Green Street"

She went to the idol-shop in Moleshill Street, where the old man mumbles, and said: "I want a god to worship when it is wet."

The old man reminded her of the heavy penalties that rightly attach to idolatry and, when he had enumerated all, she answered him as was meet: "Give me a god to worship when it is wet."

And he went to the back places of his shop and sought out and brought her a god. The same was carved of grey stone and wore a propitious look and was named, as the old man mumbled, The God of Rainy Cheerfulness.

Now it may be that long confinement to the house affects adversely the liver, or these things may be of the soul, but certain it is that on a rainy day her spirits so far descended that those cheerful creatures came within sight of the Pit, and, having tried cigarettes to no good end, she bethought her of Moleshill Street and the mumbling man.

He brought the grey idol forth and mumbled of guarantees, although he put nothing on paper, and she paid him there and then his preposterous price and took the idol away.

And on the next wet day that there ever was, she prayed to the grey-stone idol that she had bought, the God of Rainy Cheerfulness (who knows with what ceremony or what lack of it?), and so brought down on her in Leafy Green Street, in the prosperous house at the corner, that doom of which all men speak.
...............................

Dunsany V

Here's one of Dunsany's understated little apocalypses, where more is going on than at first seems. Developed at full length, if might well have fit into UNKNOWN WORLDS a quarter-century later. Once again this comes from FIFTY-ONE TALES [1915].

...........................
"Taking Up Piccadilly"

Going down Piccadilly one day and nearing Grosvenor Place I saw, if my memory is not at fault, some workmen with their coats off -- or so they seemed. They had pickaxes in their hands and wore corduroy trousers and that little leather band below the knee that goes by the astonishing name of "York-to-London."

They seemed to be working with peculiar vehemence, so that I stopped and asked one what they were doing.

"We are taking up Piccadilly," he said to me.

"But at this time of the year?" I said. "Is it usual in June?"

"We are not what we seem," said he.

"O I see," I said, "you are doing it for a joke."

"Well not exactly that," he answered me.

"For a bet?" I said.

"Not precisely," said he.

And then I looked at the bit that they had already picked, and though it was broad daylight over my head it was darkness down there, all full of the southern stars.

"It was noisy and bad and we grew aweary of it," said he that wore corduroy trousers. "We are not what we appear."

They were taking up Piccadilly altogether.


--Lord Dunsany
.............................

Dunsany IV

And here's another of Lord Dunsany's little parables, once again from FIFTY-ONE TALES [1915]. It was tales such as this one, I think, that won him the admiration of Mencken, who thought of him more as a satirist than a fantasist. People always write about Dunsany's elevated style, as if he had only one note in his repertoire, not realizing how good he was at plainspeech when he wanted to be; his best plays often juxtapose the two to good effect, as here.

A note on the title: in American English, the equivalent title would be "The Politician & the Prostitute". The Saint is of course St. Peter, traditionally the Keeper of the Keys to the Gate of Heaven.*


..........................
"The Demagogue and the Demi-Monde"

A demagogue and a demi-mondaine chanced to arrive together at the gate of Paradise. And the Saint looked sorrowfully at them both.

"Why were you a demagogue?" he said to the first.

"Because," said the demagogue, "I stood for those principles that have made us what we are and have endeared our Party to the great heart of the people. In a word I stood unflinchingly on the plank of popular representation."

"And you?" said the Saint to her of the demimonde.

"I wanted money," said the demi-mondaine.

And after some moments' thought the Saint said: "Well, come in; though you don't deserve to."

But to the demagogue he said: "We genuinely regret that the limited space at our disposal and our unfortunate lack of interest in those Questions that you have gone sso far to inculcate and have so able upheld in the past, prevent us from giving you the support for which you seek."

And he shut the golden door.
...........................





*an image still alive & well today in a thousand cartoon, not to mention most recently in Coldplay's "When I Ruled the World" from VIDA LA VIVA: 'For some reason I can't explain/I know St. Peter won't call my name'

Dunsany III

So, continuing our Dunsany series, here's another little gem from FIFTY-ONE TALES [1915]:

.......................
"The Workman"

I saw a workman fall with his scaffolding right from the summit of some vast hotel. And as he came down I saw him holding a knife and trying to cut his name on the scaffolding. He had time to try and do this for he must have had nearly three hundred feet to fall. And I could think of nothing but his folly in doing this futile thing, for not only would the man be unrecognisably dead in three seconds, but the very pole on which he tried to scratch whatever of his name he had time for was certain to be burnt in a few weeks for firewood.

Then I went home, for I had work to do. And all that evening I thought of the man's folly, till the thought hindered me from serious work.

And late that night while I was still at work, the ghost of the workman floated through my wall and stood before me laughing.

I heard no sound until after I spoke to it; but I could see the grey diaphanous form standing before me shuddering with laughter.

I spoke at last and asked what it was laughing at, and then the ghost spoke. It said: "I'm a-laughin' at you sittin' and workin' there."

"And why," I said, "do you laugh at serious work?"

"Why, yer bloomin' life 'ull go by like a wind," he said, "and yer 'ole silly civiliation 'ull be tidied up in a few centuries."

Then he fell to laughing again and this time audibly; and, laughing still, faded back through the wall again and into the eternity from which he had come.

--Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Lord Dunsany

Dunsany II

Here's another of Dunsany's little pieces, a masterpiece of economy, also from FIFTY-ONE TALES [1915].
.................................
"Time and the Tradesman"

Once Time as he prowled the world, his hair grey not with weakness but with dust of the ruin of cities, came to a furniture shop and entered the Antique department. And there he saw a man darkening the wood of a chair with dye and beating it with chains and making imitation worm-holes in it.

And when Time saw another doing his work he stood by him awhile and looked on critically.

And at last he said: "That is not how I work," and he turned the man's hair white and bent his back and put some furrows in his little cunning face; then turned and strode away, for a mighty city that was weary and sick and too long had troubled the fields was sore in need of him.
.................................

Dunsany

So, given that I've taken the name for my blog from a Dunsany story ("The Fortress Unvanquishable Save for Sacnoth"), and given how few people read Dunsany nowadays, I thought from time to time it might be good to post here some of his work to give a feel for what his work is like. Luckily in addition to the short stories he's famous for he also sometimes wrote very brief little pieces that are more like parables or fables than short stories or prose poems, a number of which are collected together in the accurately but unimaginative named book Fifty-one Tales (1915). So, here's one of those pieces in its entirety:

...................................
"The Sphinx in Thebes (Massachusetts)"

There was a woman in a steel-built city who had all that money could buy. She had gold and dividends and trains and houses, and she had pets to play with, but she had no sphinx.

So she besought them to bring her a live sphinx; and therefore they went to the menageries, and then to the forests and the desert places, and yet could find no sphinx.

And she would have been content with a little lion but that one was already owned by a woman she knew; so they had to search the world again for a sphinx.

And still there was none.

But they were not men that it is easy to baffle, and at last they found a sphinx in a desert at evening watching a ruined temple whose gods she had eaten hundreds of years ago when her hunger was on her. And they cast chains on her, who was still with an ominous stillness, and took her westwards with them and brought her home.

And so the sphinx came to the steel-built city.

And the woman was very glad that she owned a sphinx: but the sphinx stared long into her eyes one day, and softly asked a riddle of the woman.

And the woman could not answer, and she died.

And the sphinx is silent again and none knows what she will do.

--Edward John Drax Moreton Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
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