In Competition No. 2409 you were invited to provide a vitriolic review of a generally acknowledged masterpiece by a critic at the time of its appearance. ‘Monsieur Flaubert is not a writer’ was Le Figaro’s stern verdict on Madame Bovary. The Odessa Courier greeted Anna Karenina with ‘Sentimental rubbish …Show me one page that contains an idea.’ And after seeing A Midsummer Night’s Dream Pepys recorded: ‘The most insipid, ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life.’ I must confess that I too can be numbered among the barbarians: I have never come enjoyably to grips with either Proust or Ulysses, and there’s not much time left for conversion. The winners printed below (all of whom panned works that I greatly admire) get £25 each, and Michael Birt has five pounds extra for his delightfully Pooterish review.
Discerning readers may be aware that our opinion of the lightweight weekly Punch is not of the highest. Hardly surprisingly then that The Diary of a Nobody first appeared in that paper’s tawdry pages. The Grossmith brothers have concocted what purports to be the daily jottings of a City clerk of our times. If it were an honest and accurate depiction, London and our Empire would quickly founder. These scribblers have insulted thousands of dedicated clerical workers, men who are without doubt the very salt of the earth. Charles Pooter, the so-called diarist, is a ninny with a wife as empty-headed as he is and an immoral wastrel of a son. The minor characters, bearing such nonsensical names as Cumming and Gowing, are ripe for the lunatic asylum. This book should be purchased by Nobody.
Michael Birt
Life of Pi: Teenage Piscine ‘Pi’ Patel, presumed sole survivor of a shipwreck, adrift in a lifeboat. For company, a hyena, zebra, orang-utan and Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger which methodically consumes its shipmates. Pi must understand and control Parker or he’s lunch. Will the zoo-keeper’s son with multi-faith allegiances prosper? Coincidences abound like the lad’s Pacific environment. Copious rations, flares, tarpaulins, the works. Tiger, progressively burning less bright through seasickness and apathy, perks up when a passing blind Frenchman joins Pi, only to become beastfeast. Duly, the ultimate cliché — an island heaves into view. Très Robinson Crusoe. Fresh water, scrumptious algae and all the meerkats Parker can scoff. The picaresque pair fetch up in Mexico, whereupon tiger does a runner. Pi narrates adventures to incredulous Japanese salarymen, who require an official, animal-free explanation. Absurd, macabre, awash with pathos. Pi is piety personified; small wonder Parker scarpers.
Mike Morrison
The Return of the Native: How pusillanimous are Mr Hardy’s characters. In this most charmless fable, we follow the unadventurous peregrinations of no fewer than six, who mill idly about some absurdly rural landscapes, with no greater inclination than to concoct fantasies at one another’s expense. A jaded publican; an aspiring pedagogue with some suspect French; the latter’s mother, a dispirited widow; her niece, a mouse whom the hungriest cat would ignore; a dairyman addicted to daubing his person with reddle; and a fatuous beauty whose eccentricity extends no further than her telescope. They play at the sport of ‘tag’ in such dilatory fashion that children would disdain their endeavours. To these decidedly purblind persons we are expected to attribute high emotion and remarkable philosophy. Mr Hardy is fond of imaginary spectators; this one avers that, if the south-western regions contain so many dullards, then sensible travellers will give them a very wide berth.
Bill Greenwell
A new painting in the National Galleries of Scotland is attributed to a Mr Raeburn of this city, with some uncertainty because the perpetrator has wisely refrained from signing his miserable offering. It depicts the funereal figure of a preacher posing as an ice-skater. The murky background desecrates our glorious Scottish landskip; nor does the picture point any uplifting moral — surely the main purpose of a work of art. The theme was possibly inspired by an actual event: a Highland pastor found it was only possible to conduct Sunday services by skating between the three remote congregations in his care. The General Assembly disapproved, but ruled that he could skate on the Sabbath if he promised not to enjoy it. Future generations who inherit this drear image may come to regard it as one of Britain’s least-loved paintings: a dour wee minister in a Scotch mist, patently keeping his promise.
Esdon Frost
What a vile piece of trumpery this is! Mr Thackeray has a reputation, well-merited for all we know, as a confectioner of humorous trifles for popular magazines. Emboldened by this journalistic success, he has concocted a stinking hell-broth of bile and viciousness and called it a novel. Vanity Fair is truly foul. Its heroine lacks the morals of a guttersnipe and there is scarcely a character untainted by depravity in the whole wearisome length of the book. In construction it is no more than a ragbag stuffed with narrative shreds and patches laid up by the author, each of them more or less soiled in the mire of his imaginings. And when he reveals himself in an aside, his misanthropy is only matched by his mawkishness, a blend of vinegar and molasses which must nauseate any reader of sensibility. Vanity Fair has made its own midden and should lie on it.
W.J. Webster
James Joyce may have revelled in obscurity and difficulty, but it seems that his disciple Samuel Beckett has settled for incoherence. Ignoring the most rudimentary requirements of drama — mature conflict, credible characters and interesting plot development — he has offered the public in Waiting for Godot a feeble and pointless tableau. Two deadbeats bicker and speculate without getting anywhere. A bullying landowner type mistreats a slave called Lucky, who responds with a nonsensical word salad. Godot never arrives. That’s the sum total, and all in the name of Art. Perhaps the author is having a sly joke at the expense of the avant-garde, to test how much posturing nonsense they will swallow, but what is certain is that this insufferable excuse for a play amounts to a thoroughly wasted evening, and despite its small cast and minimal set requirements it is unlikely to appeal even to amateur groups.
G.M. Davis
No. 2412: Brillig time
You are invited to supply a jabberwocky poem (maximum 16 lines) beginning ‘Twas brillig…’ and containing new words of your own invention. Entries to ‘Competition No. 2412’ by 29 September.
Comments