Protea Illustrations by Arabella Roupell

Protea mellifera

Plate 7 from Specimens of the Flora of South Africa (1849)

Arabella Roupell

Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, USA

Protea cynaroides

Plate 8 from Specimens of the Flora of South Africa (1849)

Arabella Roupell

Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, USA

Wilberforce by H. S. Cross

New York : Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015

I read Wilberforce over the course of two months...not because I didn't like it...quite the opposite in fact. After each chapter, I would close the book and marvel at how amazingly well-written it was. The language, the atmosphere, it is all spot-on. Anyone who has read one of the classic English boarding school novels from the late 1800s through the 1950s will recognize the key elements in Cross's novel. Of particular importance is the cricket match...in this case between the best the school has to offer and "the old boys" (graduates of the school who have returned for a summer games day).

The novel takes place in 1926 at St. Stephen's Academy. The fags (underclassmen) are in revolt and wreaking havoc while Morgan Wilberforce along with the other upperclassmen are busy sneaking off to taverns or having romantic rendezvous. Wilberforce has set his romantic sights on Spaulding, another student, and decides to get noticed by crashing into him during a rugby match. When a tragic event occurs, everything changes at St. Stephens and Wilberforce seems unable to cope.

Cross's Wilberforce takes its place in the canon of English schoolboy novels by referencing its predecessors. When he leaves St. Stephen's Academy, Silk, a former student for whom Wilberforce had fagged, leaves him a copy of Stalky & Co. (1899) by Rudyard Kipling. In Stalky & Co., another English school novel, Eric, or Little by Little (1858) by Frederic Farrar is referenced when someone is derided for being too pious by saying they were "Ericking." This is a particularly interesting reference since our main character, Wilberforce, caused quite a scandal the year before the novel begins by refusing to be confirmed. His relationship to religious belief remains a central theme throughout the novel.

While the novel does have some degree of resolution, it remains open for a sequel. It appears that Ms. Cross is already at work on a second novel set at St. Stephens, but it is unclear if it will include young Wilberforce as a character. What she has written could become the start of a truly compelling series.

Thetis Finds Achilles Mourning over the Corpse of Patroclus by John Flaxman

Thetis Finds Achilles Mourning over the Corpse of Patroclus (1790s)

John Flaxman (English, 1755-1826)

Engraving

Self Portrait by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Self Portrait (1847)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

The Immoralist by Andre Gide

New York : Knopf, 1930
(later printing, 1949)

Originally published in1902 with the first English translation by Dorothy Bussy in 1930, The Immoralist is an early defense of homosexuality and a commentary on ethics and morality. Beginning with a short letter written by Michel's brother, this novella-length work is structured primarily as a monologue or confession.

Out of a sense of duty to his dying father, Michel marries Marceline and they honeymoon in Tunisia. While there, Michel becomes quite ill and during his convalescence, he meets a young boy, Bachir, whose beauty and strength captivate him. Seeming to now have a reason to survive tuberculosis and largely ignoring Marceline, Michel now begins to live his life according to his own desires, not what society dictates.

This way of being in and thinking about the world is strongly influenced by the ideas and writings of Oscar Wilde, who makes his appearance in the form of  the character Ménalque. This is not at all surprising since Gide and Wilde were literary friends of sorts who met and corresponded during the 1890s about these very issues.

While technically a novel, it reads more like a philosophical defense, something along the lines of Gide's Corydon (1924) where he offers a more specific defense of homosexuality in the form of four Socratic dialogues.

Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (IV); Garde (Primary, **); Mattachine Review (IV); Young (1420,*)

Finistere by Paul Cadmus

Finistère (1952)

Paul Cadmus (American, 1904-1999)

Egg tempera on pressed wood panel

10 x 13.5 in.

Whitney Museum of American Art

Finistère, or literally the end of the earth, is the westernmost part of  France. The longstanding location of a naval base, it appears repeatedly in literature and art in the first part of the twentieth century. Jean Genet's novel, Querelle de Brest, portions of Fritz Peters' novel Finistère and Paul Cadmus' painting Finistère all center on this geographic area. 

The Whitney Museum of American Art included this painting in an exhibit titled American Legends: From Calder to O'Keefe (December 22, 2012-June 29, 2014). A transcript of the audio guide stop for this painting follows.

NARRATOR: Finistère—the French region that lends this Paul Cadmus painting its name—is in the far west of Brittany, where the English Channel and the Atlantic meet.

The painting’s two main figures are young men on bicycles. Each wears nothing but a shirt and revealing swim briefs. They have the bodies of Classical or Renaissance nudes: idealized and strong. Cadmus was deeply influenced by Italian Renaissance painting. Here, he’s even executed the work in egg tempera, a painstaking medium that most artists had given up by the later sixteenth century. 

The picture’s mood is a little odd. The sea wall is labyrinthine, and blocks most of the ocean view. Hardly anyone is looking at each other, and it’s not entirely clear what’s going on. Most of the figures seem intent on their private thoughts or business. There’s a strange huddle of people to the right, including a woman in traditional Breton costume. She adds to the painting’s slightly surreal quality—but perhaps also hints at the presence of conservative society.

The two central men aren’t making eye contact either, but they do seem to be communicating. In this way, the painting is slyly humorous about how homoerotic desire can hide in plain sight—even at a time when that desire was essentially forbidden.

It Starts With Trouble : William Goyen and the Life of Writing by Clark Davis

Austin : University of Texas Press, 2015

I first became aware of Goyen's writing with The House of Breath (1950). The writing, although prose, has such a poetic quality about it that it isn't easily forgotten. His style is not easily defined and he, himself did not believe that he fit into any of the genres that were often ascribed to him (Southern Gothic, modernist, magical realist, etc.).

Although not always appreciated by family members, Goyen seems to have used the events of his life, particularly life in east Texas, as subject matter for his writing. This allows Davis to tell the story of Goyen's life through his published novels and stories as well as manuscript materials from collections at two universities.

Goyen's primary relationships were with men until he was in his mid-40s and these relationships find their way into a number of his works. He met and later married the actress Doris Roberts in 1963.

Not having read Goyen's other work, this biography is a great introduction to his entire oeuvre. I hope to explore some of his other novels in the future. I'm particularly interested in Half a Look of Cain (1994), the novel that was written after The House of Breath but could never find a publisher in Goyen's lifetime.