A Forgotten non-Bestseller: The Van Roon, by J. C. Snaith

A Forgotten Novel from the 1920s: The Van Roon, by J. C. Snaith

A review by Rich Horton

This week the book I consider does not seem to have been a bestseller, and its writer seems quite close to forgotten. At least, that is, by Wikipedia. I was able to discover another blog, Wormwoodiana, writing about an interesting-sounding early Snaith novel, William Jordan, Junior (1908) (http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2009/06/genius-of-jc-snaith.html). And there were the expected Gutenberg copies of a few of his books. And not much else.

Except, as seems to happen surprisingly often, for the wonderful Science Fiction Encyclopedia, which notes that Snaith wrote quite a lot of early SF: the novels An Affair of State (1913), The Council of Seven (1921), and Thus Far (1925) all seem real SF, and rather dark in tone. He also wrote a Ruritanian-style romance (Mrs. Fitz (1910)) and a fantasy about the Second Coming (The Coming (1917)).

J. C. Snaith was a prolific English writer. He lived from 1876 to 1936, and wrote in a wide variety of genres and modes, as far as I can tell. According to Mark Valentine at Wormwoodiana, other novels to have received some praise are The Sailor (1916) and a novel about cricket, Willow, the King (1899). According to the SFE, much of his work was more sentimental romances, and it is to that category that the novel at hand, The Van Roon, belongs.

This was published in 1922 according to the copyright notice in my copy, which I found slightly confusing. My copy is from D. Appleton & Co. of New York and London, and the copyright page first says Copyright 1922 by D. Appleton and Company, but lower on the page says “Copyright 1922 by the Curtis Publishing Co. Printed in the United States of America.” Were D. Appleton and Curtis related somehow? Was Curtis the publisher of the first edition and the Appleton edition a reprint? I don’t know. [Update: I am informed that Curtis was the publisher of the Saturday Evening Post, and that The Van Roon was first serialized there.] My copy seems to have been bought as a Christmas present three years later – at any rate, it is inscribed “Geo. D. Miller, Dec 25 – 1025”.

The novel opens in a mode that seems to promise a light romantic comedy, and that is mostly what it is, though it takes a somewhat odd melodramatic turn towards the end. We begin in a small London antique shop, S. Gedge Antiques, operated by Simon Gedge, an aging and rather miserly man. He has an assistant, young William, who has become increasingly important to the business as Gedge gets older: William has a good eye for a bargain, but also an exceptional eye for art, and a lot of a ability, as well as extreme honesty (to the point of unworldliness). Yet Gedge still pays him a pittance. This day he is surprised by the arrival of his orphaned niece, June, who has no one else to turn to. Gedge is not very willing to help her, but agrees to take her in if she will take over the cleaning – it seems Gedge, who has no toleration at all for women, is on the outs with his char. And June, a sensible and hardworking girl, agrees.

William comes back with a couple nice things that S. Gedge can sell, as well as something he bought with his own money – an ugly daub of a picture. But William thinks he sees something interesting underneath the paint, and despite Gedge’s expressed opinion that he’s wasting his money and time, he begins trying to restore the painting. Meanwhile June, a pretty girl herself, and William make their acquaintance. And when William's efforts seem to bear some fruit, June, aware that her uncle will try to cheat him, begs him to give her the painting – which William innocently does. Of course, as we have all guessed, the painting is revealed as most likely a “Van Roon” – he being a painter of the Flemish school of whose works only a few survive, including one stolen sometime previously from the Louvre.

Once Gedge realizes that, he tries to buy the painting from William for a small sum … William refuses to sell it, but tries to convince June to give it to her uncle – surely the honest old man, William thinks, only wants the painting because he truly appreciates a lovely picture. Meanwhile June is becoming a bit jealous of a beautiful young rich lady who visits the shop occasionally to buy stuff she takes a fancy too. And Gedge is mad enough at June to decide to fire her … So June looks for a new job and innocently decides that a chance-met man’s offer to use her as a model is a nice opportunity – she is innocent enough not to realize what “in the altogether" means, nor that his main interest in her is her best asset, a “rather nice chest”. And Gedge finds a couple of potential buyers for the putative Van Roon …

So the plot thickens rapidly, and what had been a light romantic comedy swerves sharply in the direction of melodrama. This part of the book really didn’t work for me, and nor, to be honest, did the quite sappy conclusion that resulted. A shame, really, as I was enjoying the first half or so of the book a fair bit – June is a nicely depicted character, half innocent, but a mostly sensible person. And William, though an implausible paragon, is worth rooting for. And even S. Gedge, for all that he’s pure cliché, is a fitfully amusing character. It’s a book that suggests an author who could entertain, and probably did well enough with his career – but in itself The Van Roon is a very minor piece. 

Another Edith Wharton ghost story: "The Eyes"

Another Edith Wharton ghost story: "The Eyes"

Now to another effective ghost story. This is “The Eyes”, which first appeared in the June 1910 issue of Scribners’ Magazine. The frame has the narrator joining his friend Andrew Culwin, a “confirmed bachelor” (and yes that means exactly what you think it means), with 6 other men at Culwin’s house for dinner and conversation. The youngest of the men is Culwin’s latest “protégé”. All of them tell a ghost story except for Culwin. Finally, when the narrator and Phil Frenham, Culwin’s new young man, remain alone, they prevail upon Culwin to tell a story, and he does – a true one.

Culwin tells first of an experience many years before, when he was thrown into association with a young, plain, cousin, Alice Nowell (“She was neither beautiful nor intelligent—poor Alice Nowell!” says Culwin), and somehow Culwin, who thinks women “are necessary only because someone has to do the cooking” finds himself having offered to marry her, despite a complete lack of physical or intellectual attraction. Then one night he wakes to see a sinister pair of eyes looking at him … and he comes to the conclusion that he must flee Alice Nowell.

His next experience with the eyes is in Rome. He has taken a young man, Gilbert Noyes, under his wing (at Alice’s urging) ... Noyes wants to be a writer, and Culwin sees immediately that he has no talent, but he keeps him on for some time, continuing to encourage his efforts. He tells himself he’ doing it for the boy’s sake – but it’s fairly obvious he doesn’t want to give up the boy’s attentions – until the eyes appear again, and Culwin realizes he must disabuse Noyes of any illusions about his talent.

And that’s the end of Culwin’s story – we return to the frame, and a conveniently placed mirror allows the narrator (and Culwin) to see Culwin’s own eyes in the proper context – while young Phil Frenham, the latest protégé, is crushed, realizing, perhaps, what he is to the older man.

So what is the real meaning of the eyes? Obviously they are Culwin’s – and they seem to warn him away from doing more wrong – but always after he has done some wrong already. Looked at most simply, Culwin is something of a vampire figure, latching on to young men (of some talent, presumably, most of the time), and enjoying them while they are young (“juicy”, one character says). If this is the case, perhaps the eyes are simply warning Culwin that the likes of Alice Nowell and Gilbert Noyes are not worthy of his attention. Indeed this could be given a positive spin – one online writer tried to do so – the eyes only appear when Culwin is acting against his better nature. There is a suggestion that most of Culwin’s protégés benefit from his attentions. On the other hand, here’s how Culwin describes the eyes: “they seemed to belong to a man who had done a lot of harm in his life, but had always kept just inside the danger lines. They were not the eyes of a coward, but of someone much too clever to take risks;”. Not a good thing. And Culwin’s treatment of, say, Alice – indeed his inability to appreciate her (or any woman) – seems another wrong. 

A Somewhat Forgotten Moderate Seller: The Man Who Got Away, by Sumner Locke Elliott

The Man Who Got Away by Sumner Locke Elliott

A review by Rich Horton

Here’s a book that probably wasn’t a bestseller, but might have sold OK. Sumner Locke Elliott was reasonably well-known, prominently published, had a a couple of books made into a movie. But he doesn’t seem that well known these days. (Jo Walton introduced him to me, and she writes of him as almost a private pleasure – a writer nobody else she knows has read.) 

Elliott was born in Sydney, Australia in 1917. His mother, also a writer, Helena Sumner Locke, died from complications of his childbirth, and he was raised by his two aunts, who fought a bitter custody battle (lightly fictionalized in his first novel, Careful, He Might Hear You). He was a fairly successful playwright in Australia until after the War, when he moved to the United States, and became a prominent writer of teleplays during the “Golden Age” of live television, the ‘50s. In the ‘60s he turned to novels. He was also a closeted gay man, coming out only with the publication of his last novel, Fairyland, a year before his death in 1991.

The Man Who Got Away, from 1972, is arguably SF, which is why I chose to try it. In the end I think it qualifies as an interesting borderline case that I think I’d call not really SF, and the reasons for that might be illuminating.  As a counterexample, I’d consider Martin Amis’ Time’s Arrow, which has a somewhat similar premise, SF, just on the other side of that fuzzy border.  Here’s why, quickly: in The Man Who Got Away, the SF premise is entirely an enabling device, a narrative construct, used to propel the novel backwards in time.  It could have been told in a series of flashbacks, though I think that Elliott’s choice is much better.  Also, nothing is made of the SF device, either “actually” (there is no suggestion that this experience is useful or repeatable) or metaphorically.  The arguments pro-SF would say, I think, that for all that Elliott makes his SF device “real”: the narrator really =does= disappear from “present-day” life, with no other explanation possible.  And, pro-SF, there is one bit of Sfnal frisson, one place where something happens that is outside the realm of “narrative device”.  Nonetheless … In the case of Time’s Arrow, contrariwise, I would argue in favor of SF mainly because of the real metaphorical use Amis makes of his backward in time narration: mainly the Nazi Doctor bringing his “patients” back to life.  I could certainly understand an argument that suggested that all the tricks in Time’s Arrow are just as much “narrative devices” as those in The Man Who Got Away, though.

The Man Who Got Away is rather interesting, but to my mind not quite successful.  It opens with a chapter from the POV of Ruth Wood, whose husband, George, just disappears one day.  Then the novel proper starts, from George’s POV, from the time of his disappearance.  He soon realizes that he is experiencing significant events in his life backward in time.  At first he seems to be a moderately successful, moderately happy, somewhat rich, somewhat likable, guy, a television writer/producer.  As we move backward in time, we realize that most of this is outward appearance: he’s not very happy at all, he’s not all that successful, and if outwardly likable, he’s really an incredible asshole.  He’s also tormented by mysterious events in his past: his bitter relationship with his mother, his broken friendship with the actor Archer Cook, and his hatred of the poet John Citadel.  As we go back in time we get more evidence of George’s worthlessness, and failure, and more hints of the reasons.  All is finally explained in the end, but not in a way that, for me, justified George’s failings. (Which I should say may be exactly what Elliott intended.)

This is a very well written novel, and readable, and absorbing, but it didn’t quite work for me.  I had two main problems: 1) the main character is an irredeemable jerk, and it can be hard to put up with that for the length of a novel, and 2) the eventual “explanations” were a bit shallow, and anti-climactic, and unconvincing.  Also, George’s childhood seemed almost wholly disconnected, culturally and economically, from his later life, and the accompanying picture of American life in the '30s doesn't convince.  I’m tempted to suggest an Aussie not “getting” the US, in some way -- although he does better with the '50s  and '60s (when, of course, Elliott lived in the US). Still, as I say all that, from the perspective of nearly 20 years, I still remember the book, and I still think it intriguing, with a few moments of real beauty. So my first reaction may have understated its value a bit.

Edith Wharton Stories: "Autres Temps ..." and "The Long Run"

Next up is a pair of stories that seem linked in my mind: “Autres Temps …” and “The Long Run”. The stories are from nearly the same time: “Autres Temps …” appeared in Century, July 1911 (as “Other Times, Other Manners”), and “The Long Run” in the Atlantic Monthly, February 1912.

“Autres Temps …” is generally regarded, I think, as one of Wharton’s best stories, and I would tend to agree. It’s the story of Mrs. Lidcote, who scandalously left her husband and ran off with another man some 18 years before the action of the story. She has been living alone in Italy for some time, but she is finally returning to New York. It seems her daughter, Leila, has done much as Mrs. Lidcote did – divorced her husband and married her lover. Leila wants to see her mother again. On the steamer she meets again an old friend, Franklin Ide, who has suggested in the past that he wants to marry her, and whom she has refused on the grounds that she won’t be accepted in society anywhere, and that won’t be fair to Franklin. (An abiding theme again and again in Wharton’s work is how society’s rules disproportionately affected women.) Franklin seems convinced that times have changed – after all, Leila is accepted everywhere – attitudes have changed, surely Mrs. Lidcote will also be accepted. And, indeed, she allows herself to think that that may be the case.

Well, you can see where this is going. Mrs. Lidcote comes to New York, and is taken to her daughter’s new house, and she can see what a success her daughter is – she is very happy in her new marriage, her ex-husband is compliant, and she is accepted everywhere, by all the “best” people. But, in a series of devastating, and deliciously underplayed, scenes, we see that while the rules are indeed different for Leila, nothing has changed for Mrs. Lidcote – she is essentially shunned by everyone, and even those close to her: her daughter, and a sympathetic old friend, maneuver around her, shunt her to the side, make excuses that they don’t even seem to realize they are making. Finally, she decides she must return to her solitary life in Italy, and she gets one more passionate plea from Franklin Ide -- and we realize that he too, without even realizing it, treats her as someone to step carefully around in “society”. It’s just a beautiful, devastating story, and also stunningly well-written.

And in a way it’s almost like SF … because to get it, you have to understand attitudes which are quite alien to present day attitudes. There was an adaptation – a play, I think – that recast the story in 1960 … I wonder how that worked? Seems to me it might not have, really. I should mention also that it’s loosely based on a real story – a Boston woman in 1895 abandoned her family and ran off to Paris with her lover. In her case, her children shunned her completely, until finally inviting her for a visit some 40 years later – when she got the cable inviting her, apparently she fell dead on the spot. (Obviously this denouement had not eventuated when Wharton wrote "Autres Temps ...".) Lewis quotes the woman in question’s granddaughter claiming that Wharton “got it all wrong” – of course, Wharton did not, at all. Because she wasn’t telling this woman’s grandmother’s story, she was telling the story of Mrs. Lidcote, a character she invented!

So, the, what of “The Long Run”? It seems almost a purposeful response to “Autres Temps …”. The first story told of the sad fate of a woman who defied societal convention and ran off with her lover. “The Long Run” tells of the sad fates of a man and a woman who, in the end, obeyed society’s rules. (Of course, Wharton’s definitive take on this subject came a few years later in her great novel The Age of Innocence.)

“The Long Run” is told by an unnamed narrator who, at the start, having returned to the States after a dozen years away, runs into an old Harvard friend of his, Halston Merrick. Merrick, when he knew him in college and just after, was a brilliant and unconventional man, apparently destined for a great career in literature or perhaps politics. He was rich (of course), and he inherited his father’s Iron Works early after his father’s unexpected death, but he intended to sell it and get on with his real career. At the same party where the narrator meets Merrick, he sees a woman who looks vaguely familiar. He asks Merrick who she might be, and he learns that she is Mrs. Reardon, but that he must have known her as Mrs. Trant, Paulina Trant.

The narrator ends up spending some time with Halston Merrick, and he learns the whole story. Merrick and Paulina Trant fell in love – her husband was a rather awful bore. After a while, suddenly, Paulina shows up on Merrick’s door step – she is ready to run away with him. And Halston Merrick can’t bring himself to do it. He tells himself he’s saving her from herself – her foresees a fate something like that of Mrs. Lidcote in “Autres Temps …”. But by slow degrees he comes to realize that he is the coward … he is the one unable to throw off society’s rules. And, in the “long run”, what will he be? He will never sell the Iron Works – he’ll never write anything worthwhile (the narrator reads some later efforts and finds them weak and tired). And when Mr. Trant dies unexpectedly, he and Paulina meet again, and somehow he is unworthy of her – and, she, perhaps, is unworthy of him, or at least the old him. And now, years later, both Halston Merrick and the now Mrs. Reardon are sad ordinary creatures, bores, failures.

This is a decent story, but to me it has the air of constructedness – it seems didactic, formed to make its point. In a funny way I was reminded of James Hilton’s Random Harvest, whose protagonist (for rather more melodramatic reasons) ends up leaving a life with his great love to take over his family’s business. The difference in this case is that Hilton’s hero still makes something of his business (and political) career – though still missing his love, and still, perhaps, feeling that he was missing an opportunity by not pursuing a writing career.