The ship itself is, of course, an allegory for mankind on its voyage to eternity. Always celebrating as well as indicting the endless folly of Western Man, about to embark on yet another world war, Katherine Anne Porter shows how from the tiny hatreds and foolishnesses of ordinary souls a great body of hate can grow.
Katherine Anne Porter was born in Texas and lived in Europe and America, North and South. She took twenty years to write Ship of Fools, which became an instant bestseller and was filmed in 1965. Her Collected Stories won the Pulitzer Prize in 1966.
Age in year of publication: seventy-two.
Anthony Powell 1905–2000
1951–1975 A Dance to the Music of Time
A Question of Upbringing (1951), A Buyer’s Market (1952)
The Acceptance World (1955), At Lady Molly’s (1957),
Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant (1960), The Kindly Ones (1962),
The Valley of Bones (1964), The Soldier’s Art (1966),
The Military Philosophers (1968), Books Do Furnish a Room (1971),
Temporary Kings (1973), Hearing Secret Harmonies (1975)
It is unwise to consult any British person about this novel sequence, which, in the manner of Proust, recounts the life and experiences of Nick Jenkins, a denizen of the English uppermiddle, if not aristocratic, class. The English disease of fussing about class has long prevented Powell from receiving the universal acclaim which is his right.
In Powell’s world the Establishment meets Bohemia. Nick Jenkins begins his narration before the First World War and ends in reflective old age, his companions a kaleidoscope of eccentrics, musicians, sluts, women ferocious and loving, men in love or in drink, generals, politicians, necrophiliacs — the cast is as large and as real as life itself. These are comic novels, classical in composition, interweaving sexual entanglements with intricate negotiations for power, with world wars and high matters of state, contemplating always the mysterious nature of love, most particularly of friendship experienced, lost, grieved over. Time dances — and it takes a heavy toll.
There are few masters of English prose with Powell’s command of irony and elegance of language. These are tender, amusing, pervasive novels; they remain in the memory. It is unnecessary to read the twelve together, but once begun …
Anthony Powell was born in London and lived in Somerset. He wrote other novels, and his memoirs, To Keep the Ball Rolling (4 vols 1976–82), illuminate A Dance to the Music of Time. His awards included the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the W. H. Smith Award.
Age in year of publication: forty-six — seventy.
V. S. Pritchett 1900–1997
1998 The Lady from Guatemala
A Pritchett sentence is unmistakable. ‘She was a smart girl with a big friendly chin and a second one coming.’ ‘What the unconverted could not forgive in us was first that we believed in successful prayer and, secondly, that our revelation came from Toronto.’
Such words chivvy us into the Pritchett world of shopkeepers, barbers, sailors, small businessmen, religious Nonconformists and women who are much more than a match for any men who come their way. Pritchett delights in writing about human bodies, their shape and protuberances, about marriage, love and everything that leads up to, and away from, marital irritation. His women are powerful creatures, bold-nosed, full-breasted, large-eyed and, quite often, on the rampage. These are not enclosed English people. They often skip overseas and greet foreigners with feisty poise.
Pritchett is the great chronicler of those quotidian institutions which actually keep the wheels of England turning: seedy hotels, small houses, trains and a great deal of rain. His ordinary things are full of vim and bounce. Pritchett is the greatest English short story writer of this century, combining love of the English character with an inquisitive wit. This book, a choice of his best stories, shows his exceptional powers of observation and his effortless command of the use, as well as the beauty, of the English language.
V. S. Pritchett was born in Ipswich and lived in Paris, Spain, Ireland and London. Equally distinguished as an essayist and critic, his other best works are The Complete Short Stories (1990) and his autobiographies, The Cab at the Door (1968) and Midnight Oil (1971).
Posthumous publication.
E. Annie Proulx 1935–
1993 The Shipping News
The narrative method here is original, quirky, unforgettable, and so too are the characters. The style is brisk and authoritative, as though this was the only way that the story could be told. There is no nonsense; scenes are short. The author has no interest in heroics, or fine descriptions. The novel is full of details: boatbuilding, housebuilding, knot-making, bad weather, good weather, journalism. No one is perfect.
The place is Newfoundland, where our protagonist — it would be hard to call him a hero — Quoyle, a journalist down on his luck, comes with his aunt, a very tough old bird, and his two daughters. The atmosphere is awash with salt water and conversation and work half done. The sea and the wind and the vagaries of the human heart in equal proportions fuel the narrative. Slowly, Quoyle and his aunt, whose ancestors have come from this place, start to fit in with life in Newfoundland, becoming immensely lovable and credible characters. Proulx has the ability to make the most ordinary moments in their lives shine with a luminous grace, at times a mild incandescence. She keeps the novel moving in scenes which are constantly unexpected and original.
E. Annie Proulx was born in Connecticut. Her other novels include, Postcards (1991), The Shipping News and Accordion Crimes (1996), and That Old Ace in the Hole (2002) and the volumes of stories, Heartsongs (1988) and three volumes of Wyoming Stories, Close Range (1999), Bad Dirt (2004) and Fine Just the Way It Is (2008). The Shipping News won the National Book Award, a Pulitzer Prize and the Irish Times International Fiction Prize.
Age in year of publication: fifty-eight.
Mario Puzo 1920–1999
1969 The Godfather
In writing about the Sicilian Mafia at home in the playing fields of the USA, Mario Puzo created a universal fairy tale in which, crossing Greek gods with Robin Hood, he produced a new race of heroes, criminals of honour, murderers with a sense of justice.
Such are the Corleones, ruled by Don Vito, the Godfather, a man who protects all who belong to him. Within his kingdom he is omnipotent, capable of arranging for the decapitation of a horse and its insertion into a recalcitrant’s bed whilst tending tomatoes in his back garden. When we meet him, just after the Second World War, the Mafia are on the point of change; drugs have entered the scene, and ritual warfare breaks out between the Mafia families. Corleone’s sons, the rumbustious Sonny and the deceptive Michael, move to centre stage, encircled by a gallery of Mafiosi men and women, following the descent into open warfare like the chorus in an opera. And indeed, in its viciously orchestrated finale, this is what The Godfather is seen to be — a grand opera, in words and action, its voice reaching the heavens.