Troy Chimneys by Margaret Kennedy (1953)
I was at a great used book store in Glendale last week and happened to pick up this British novel from 1953. It is exactly my kind of book - it takes place in 19th Century England so there's lots of British people wandering around in it (any book about 19th Century British people has at least a 10% advantage from the get-go), it's unobtrusively well-written, and it's very bittersweet.
Troy Chimneys is one of those "found manuscript" books, where characters in the novel discover historical letters or a memoir that tell an interesting story. In this case, what is found is the autobiography of Miles Lufton, written in 1818 when he was 36 years old and at an impasse in his life. Miles grew up in a nice family, with great parents (and in particular a wonderful mother), generous siblings, and enough money to attend good schools. His problem, though, is that this was never enough for him. He wanted to be an important person (his father is just a parson and not wealthy) so he continually put his ambition ahead of everything else. He rises up in the world, but he's never really happy about it. Miles is so conflicted about his actions, that he divides his psyche into two halves: he calls his ambitious and politic side "Pronto" and his sensitive and "true" side "Miles." He considers Pronto to be a bastard and Miles to be his better nature, but by the end of the book this delineation is muddied.
Most of what he describes in his life is loss: his mother's death, his friend's impressment into the Navy, his rejection by the love of his life. Nothing is ever catastrophic, but it all adds up into a yearning for the way things could be but never really are. Margaret Kennedy's writing is just beautiful and it never calls attention to itself, it just flows. Here's a good passage:
'She was there, reading by the window. I took the book from her, ascertained that it was Crabbe, and was making some remark about his work when she objected, with a trace of impatience, that we had been discussing Crabbe for eleven years. I suppose that we had, and it was ridiculous to begin upon the subject as though we had just met. But I could not explain that Pronto's discussions did not count.
"I will tell you something about him," said I, "which you never heard before, from me at least, because I only learnt it lately myself. I hope you don't know it."
I told her how Crabbe had taken the manuscript of his poems to Edmund Burke and was then unable to leave the spot where his fate might be decided. All night he paced up and down in the vicinity, watching a light in a window of Burke's house, and playing with the fancy that the great man might be sitting up, reading his poems.
"And so it was," I concluded. "The light was in Burke's room. He did sit up all night. He was reading the poems."
I got another golden look.
"I wonder if we should like it," she said, "if the world were always as well managed as that! I believe we might think it dull. Such a story is pleasing because it is rare. Tell me another."'
Troy Chimneys is hard to define, and I like the fact that I don't entirely understand it. Towards the end of the book there are several references to King Lear and they add a layer of complexity to the story. Like Lear, Miles loses everything and because of it he comes to some hard won realizations, but there are no real answers.
Troy Chimneys is one of those "found manuscript" books, where characters in the novel discover historical letters or a memoir that tell an interesting story. In this case, what is found is the autobiography of Miles Lufton, written in 1818 when he was 36 years old and at an impasse in his life. Miles grew up in a nice family, with great parents (and in particular a wonderful mother), generous siblings, and enough money to attend good schools. His problem, though, is that this was never enough for him. He wanted to be an important person (his father is just a parson and not wealthy) so he continually put his ambition ahead of everything else. He rises up in the world, but he's never really happy about it. Miles is so conflicted about his actions, that he divides his psyche into two halves: he calls his ambitious and politic side "Pronto" and his sensitive and "true" side "Miles." He considers Pronto to be a bastard and Miles to be his better nature, but by the end of the book this delineation is muddied.
Most of what he describes in his life is loss: his mother's death, his friend's impressment into the Navy, his rejection by the love of his life. Nothing is ever catastrophic, but it all adds up into a yearning for the way things could be but never really are. Margaret Kennedy's writing is just beautiful and it never calls attention to itself, it just flows. Here's a good passage:
'She was there, reading by the window. I took the book from her, ascertained that it was Crabbe, and was making some remark about his work when she objected, with a trace of impatience, that we had been discussing Crabbe for eleven years. I suppose that we had, and it was ridiculous to begin upon the subject as though we had just met. But I could not explain that Pronto's discussions did not count.
"I will tell you something about him," said I, "which you never heard before, from me at least, because I only learnt it lately myself. I hope you don't know it."
I told her how Crabbe had taken the manuscript of his poems to Edmund Burke and was then unable to leave the spot where his fate might be decided. All night he paced up and down in the vicinity, watching a light in a window of Burke's house, and playing with the fancy that the great man might be sitting up, reading his poems.
"And so it was," I concluded. "The light was in Burke's room. He did sit up all night. He was reading the poems."
I got another golden look.
"I wonder if we should like it," she said, "if the world were always as well managed as that! I believe we might think it dull. Such a story is pleasing because it is rare. Tell me another."'
Troy Chimneys is hard to define, and I like the fact that I don't entirely understand it. Towards the end of the book there are several references to King Lear and they add a layer of complexity to the story. Like Lear, Miles loses everything and because of it he comes to some hard won realizations, but there are no real answers.