Review
Selected
Early Works of T. F. Powys,
edited with an Introduction and Notes by Elaine
Mencher. Brynmill Press, 2 volumes 2004. ISBN 0-907839-88-6; £120.
The value of
a collection such as this to readers of all the Powyses is unquestionable;
to those particularly interested in the development of Theodore Powys’s
writing it is invaluable. The initial publication has been limited to 200
numbered copies, 175 of which are for sale. As the price indicates this is
intended as a collector’s item, handsomely bound and contained in a
slip-case. Volume 1 (pp.278) includes a comprehensive note on Editorial
Matters, and an Introduction of 104 pages. Volume 2 (pp.336) concludes
with a brief Bibliography. In addition to the two volumes, the set
includes a folder containing a selection of Manuscript and Typescript
Facsimiles. In a review of this length the most important task is to give
a clear indication of what these volumes make available.
As Elaine
Mencher explains early in her Introduction, `Being plunged into the depths
of [Theodore Powys’s] earliest work is not always an enjoyable
experience.` We do encounter here Powys giving vent to his darkest and
ugliest moods as he searches for a voice and a genre in which to write.
The selection has been carefully designed to display this process. Most of
the items included here originated in the first two decades of the
twentieth century, including short stories, plays, Bible commentaries,
essays, autobiographical fragments, and prose poems. Also included is the
`Journal` of 1910-13, where self doubt and despair are tempered by Powys’s
grim determination to seek comfort in his own version of an
existentialist creed: `I do not know how to use myself, how can I know how
to use the world? I only know that I move, I feel like one that is half
awake and yet is compelled to go on. I see many lies but man is not a
lie.` (267). There are extracts from unpublished novels, and also included
are the cancelled chapters of Powys’s first published novel, Mr.
Tasker’s Gods (1925).
Elaine
Mencher comments on each of the items included. Equally importantly, she
includes information about the rest of the collection of this early work
not represented here. The account is scholarly and detailed, containing
bibliographical information, and comments of a more speculative nature. Of
the `Journal`, for example, she notes that in the latter entries there is
a significant shift (particularly in the final entry) from the recording
of `personal philosophy` to the inclusion of `happenings which
prompt Powys’s philosophical responses; responses which go beyond the self
to embrace the life of the labourer in the field and beyond.` (lxv).
Soliloquies of a Hermit is a seminal text for all readers of Theodore
Powys; the `Journal` thus reveals the road Powys had travelled immediately
before embarking on that newly refined attempt to bring his thoughts
within the confines of a prose medium that could express them.
Soliloquies
has invariably been read as a key text both for understanding Powys’s
philosophy, and for appreciating the range of his reading, and how other
authors were influencing the development of his writing towards maturity.
Powys’s essay on Bunyan of 1908 is included here, and it very clearly
justifies the profound importance of Bunyan for Powys which Mencher, along
with many others, proposes. Though men may be capable of unspeakable evil,
Powys, as we saw from the `Journal` extract quoted above, retains a
conviction that Man might equally perceive and cherish `Truth`; not that
this `Truth` will necessarily be a comfortable commodity. Bunyan takes his
place among the mystics in whom this seed is sown: `it will bring forth
fruit if the soil be good`. Set alongside Bunyan in this respect are `Boehme
and in our own day Nietzsche.` What then follows illustrates that Powys
was by this time very aware of the fact that the act of writing for a
public readership, and therefore developing a style and genre to that end,
would impose restrictions on what he was be able to express. `The true
Mystic`, he writes, enters the seed of truth, and grows up with it `out of
the cave of the Earth` into `the sunlight above`. The consequence of this,
as he describes it, in many ways epitomises the difficulties and the
rewards which a study of his mature fiction offers: `Oftentimes the Mystic
would carry a little of his favourite earth into the newfound heaven, and
in the written works of man, the earth often hides the heaven.` (163)
In the
Introduction, this essay is set alongside the later, 1922-3 John Wesley
essay, and the essay on Conrad (of uncertain date, but post 1913). By this
means Mencher ensures that the reader remains aware throughout of much
more than is included in these volumes, and is alerted to Powys’s
commitment not only to his own development as a writer, but to his
extensive reading in the course of these early years. In the final
paragraphs of `Under the Bondage of Fear` (1904), a profoundly depressing
story in which, never the less, there are fascinating shifts of style and
intertextual experiments to observe, Powys’s attempt to relieve the gloom
with a glimpse of a `newfound heaven` takes him directly to Blake. We have
seen Blake referenced in the extract from the Wesley essay quoted in the
Introduction (Powys commented, `how far Blake was influenced by Wesley I
should like to know`). The Biblical roots of `Under the Bondage of Fear`
are, as Mencher shows, to be found in the first Epistle of St. John, and
then in a variety of Old Testament sources. At the end, however, the body
of the victim is taken to `the Garden of Love…. And the flowers in the
Garden of Love grew, and in the village other little babes were born, and
the people lived in peace.` What Powys has done here, and it is worth
noting given how grim most of the action is, is to take William Blake’s
dark vision contained in his poem `The Garden of Love` (`That so many
sweet flowers bore`), and transform it into a vision of positive, pastoral
contentment. The final verse of Blake’s poem describes a paradise lost:
`And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, / And binding with
briars my joys and desires.` The final paragraph of `Under the Bondage of
Fear` reads: `But after many years changes came, and new hands reaped the
corn, but Fear came not back again, neither were the people any more under
his bondage.` (107)
It is to be
hoped that it proves possible before too long for Brynmill Press to
produce a cheaper edition of these meticulously edited and annotated
volumes.
John
Williams
From The
Powys Society Newsletter, No 55, November 2005
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