Old Bestseller: The Constant Nymph, by Margaret Kennedy

Old Bestseller: The Constant Nymph, by Margaret Kennedy

by Rich Horton

Margaret Kennedy (1896-1967) was a British novelist and playwright, with at least 16 novels and a number of plays to her credit, as well as criticism and memoirs. She seems to have been quite successful in her lifetime, signaled in part by several movie adaptations, but, like many writers, her reputation went into eclipse for a time, but she has been somewhat rescued in recent years. Her family was, as a whole, quite literary -- Joyce Cary was her cousin, and one of her daughters and one of her granddaughters are also novelists.

The Constant Nymph, her second novel, from 1924, is definitely her best remembered book. She turned it into a play in 1926 (with Basil Dean) -- this was very popular, with the lead originated by Noel Coward, who was replaced by John Gielgud. There were four screen adaptations, in 1928, 1933, 1938, and 1943. The latter version, starring Charles Boyer, Joan Fontaine, Alexis Smith, and Brenda Marshall, was quite successful, with Fontaine getting an Oscar nomination. (Having said that, a reading of the plot according to Wikipedia suggests to me that some of the most affecting parts of the novel were excised -- admittedly, in part likely because they'd have been pretty controversial.)

The story opens with a brief introduction to the expatriate British composer Albert Sanger, who left his home early for life on the continent, producing mostly operas that were only appreciated by a rare few, living in various places, with various wives and mistresses, and seven acknowledged children plus some illegitimate ones. We meet one of his protégés, another Englishman, Lewis Dodd, coming to visit him at his ramshackle place in the Austrian Tyrol. This section is called "Sanger's Circus", and Dodd, along with a Russian choreographer named Trigorin, arrive at the house, in which Sanger's seven children -- two by his first wife, four by his second wife, an Englishwoman named Evelyn Churchill, and one by his current mistress live, along with Sanger and the mistress, Linda. Lewis Dodd is another fabulous composer, also mostly unappreciated. The immediate crises are two -- Sanger's 16 year old daughter Toni has disappeared, and Sanger's health is precarious. Toni soon emerges -- she has run off to München, and has been seduced by the Jewish impresario Jacob Birnbaum. It's quickly clear that the even younger Tessa (14) is in love with Dodd, who has just enough self control not to sleep with her. And then Sanger dies.

Toni's situation is normalized, to some extent, when she marries Jacob. The two oldest Sanger children are talented musicians, and old enough to go off on their own. But what to do with Evelyn Churchill's remaining children, Tessa, Lina, and Sebastian? Evelyn's brothers, Robert and Charles, realize they must take custody, and soon Robert and Charles' daughter Florence come to the Sanger home to manage the estate, and to pack the children off to school in England. But Florence -- already an admirer of Lewis Dodd's music -- falls desperately in love with him, though it's really pretty clear they are not well suited. Lewis is entranced as well, due to Florence's beauty and sophistication, and they quickly marry. 

Then to the closing sequence, which involves the inevitable collapse of the Dodds' marriage, and the terrible difficulty the Sanger-Churchill children have adapting to English school ways. Florence is overcontrolling, and fiendishly jealous of Tessa. Tessa is still in love with Lewis -- and Lewis with her, though it's not clear how much of his response is to be trusted (and it's certainly a bit creepy.) Lewis (of course) is a compositional genius (and also a great conductor) -- and Florence sees him as a career to manage, while Tessa is more of a muse ... The novel careens from what at the beginning is an almost comic -- and quite believable -- portrayal of a chaotic if somewhat loving household to a full on -- and quite believable -- tragedy.

It's not a perfect novel. The brilliance of both Sanger and Dodd as composers seems at times a plot device. The portrayal of Jacob Birnbaum is very antisemitic, though one could argue that it is simply portraying the standard antisemitism of the era. The ultimate plot resolution turns in part on what seems a sort of convenient health problem. But for all that -- it really works. It's deeply affecting, and much of the family dynamics, for all their chaos, or perhaps because of the chaos, ring true. Florence perhaps is in the end too much of a villain -- but also we kind of believe that, and she's a villain but for -- well, not good reasons but understandable ones. It's -- it's a novel eminently worth reading, and quite powerful in its way. And, you know, the ending the reader kind of roots for (but doesn't get) is in many ways just so wrong -- but ... kind of right? I've seen the book compared to Lolita, but it's not really like that at all -- Tessa is not at all like Dolores Haze, nor so horribly abused, and Lewis Dodd, though not really an admirable man, is no Humbert Humbert. And Kennedy gets into Tessa's head in a way Nabokov never did with Dolores.

By the way, I had not known that Kennedy wrote a sequel, The Fool of the Family, concerning two of the Sanger boys, and (of course) their horrifying romantic convolutions. (The Constant Nymph is essentially all about the girls.) It seems to have been a success, and was adapted by Kennedy into a play, Escape Me Never, which in turn was twice filmed, in the UK in 1935, and again in the US in 1947. (The British film seems well-regarded, but the US film was apparently quite poor, despite starring Errol Flynn and Ida Lupino.)