Charles Morgan

[Eric]

I'm becoming rather intrigued by the works of Charles Langbridge Morgan (1894-1958) who was evidently very popular during his lifetime, but has somehow dropped below the radar of modern critics.

The Wikipedia article mentions quite a bit about his background, which was shaped by having parents who moved from Wales to Australia, and the fact that he started out as a poet. But alas, it says virtually nothing about his several novels and books of essays.

I've only read one of his novels so far, and several of his essays. But the novel, The Judge's Story, seemed very well written and he tied up all the ends, which I like. The story is the tale, as I mentioned on the Recently Finished thread, of to men, one of whom wants to get a hold on, control, the other. An interrelated theme is a debt and how the one man does a certain amount of manipulation to make this too the subject of his control. The retired judge tries to extricate himself from this sticky web.

Some of Morgan's later novels involve WWII, during which Morgan fought in France, helping British prisoners to escape.

His essays, collected in two volumes entitled Reflections in a Mirror (1944, 1946) cover a range of subjects, from bird song to leisure, British attitudes to France and Europe, and literary ones about Pascal, Hardy, Turgenev, Symbolism, Emily Brontë, Landor, Tolstoy, Blunden, Verlaine, and even, curiously, the Horst Wessel song, this last one first published in 1944.

I think it is the slight mystical quality of what he writes that interests me. One unspeakably silly comment that is referred to in the Wikipedia article about Morgan says that:

"...he was often criticised for excessive seriousness, and is now rather neglected; he once claimed that the "sense of humour by which we are ruled avoids emotion and vision and grandeur of spirit as a weevil avoids the sun."

Note that he says "the sense of humour by which we are ruled". What he is berating is not humour in general but shallow humour, which slaps down everything noble and grand for a good laugh. He'd have quite a bit to say about some of the half-hour shows on British TV nowadays, some half-century after his death.

Charles Morgan was also Chairman of International PEN from 1953 until his death and wrote columns in various publications.

Literary reputations can be very quirky things, and I always wonder how it is that some writers are revived and re-examined, while others almost sink without trace.

[accidie]

I'll certainly keep an eye out for The Judge's Story. I'm taken with the plot, by your mention of a mystical quality, and by the fact that he was popular in France. (That last I learned from The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English, a joke of a book which hitherto has been useful only as doorstoop/help with TLS crosswords.)
Should I read it, shall I continue the thread with a rant re Morgan's post-Husserlian gender-dynamised dialectic of 'thatness' and objectivity 'of' non-spiritual dynamics of quasi-Hegelian normatives '?' (viz. N. Bourbaki, R. Selavy)

[Eric]

Sorry, the joke is beyond me when you say:

Should I read it, shall I continue the thread with a rant re Morgan's post-Husserlian gender-dynamised dialectic of 'thatness' and objectivity 'of' non-spiritual dynamics of quasi-Hegelian normatives '?' (viz. N. Bourbaki, R. Selavy)

I think this author is a good essayist, and is, for me, beyond pisstakes and Husserl, whose work I haven't read.

If you could say which of his books you have read and what you think, I would be grateful. If you haven't read any, do.

C'est la vie, Afrikaner tobacco.

[accidie]

So sorry. Alighted upon this thread immediately after reading the one on Orwell, which of course you had no way of knowing.
No, I've not read Morgan but shall look into getting The Judge's Story from amazon.
Was thinking of Duchamp--Rrose Selavy--but is that truly the name of a tobacco? Calls to mind disgusted Afrikaners harrumphing 'c'est la mort, more like.'
In any case, thanks for the information on Morgan.

[Howard]

I remember in my teens (a long, long time ago) coming across a French book on English literature, probably dating from the Thirties or Forties, in which Charles Morgan was considered the most important contemporary English writer. I got the impression that what the French liked about him was that he dealt with spiritual themes, rather like French Catholic writers of the time like Mauriac and Bernanos.

As far as I know, Morgan is now as forgotten in France as he is in English-speaking countries.

[Eric]

Howard, from my cursory researches, this is quite correct: the Frogs loved him, the Brits dumped him when he died, rather prematurely. Morgan had many kind words to say about the French, even the Italians, when Britain was at war with them in 1943. Although I've changed the book I'm now reading as announced in the window of the postings here, I am still reading his essays, which are illuminating.

The latest one I've read was about Turgenev, where he contrasts the somewhat more tranquil Turgenev with the rather wild Dostoevsky.

Morgan's essay on Emily Brontë is also interesting, suggesting that Branwell may have help her write parts of "Wuthering Heights", but that the spirit of the book is wholly hers. This time it is her wildness that impresses him.

As it happens, Accidie, I am a fan of Afrikaner literature. The caricature of nasty Boers that fought Churchill and a few other Brits like Kitchener, then turned into Black-hating savages in the 1940s, is a total travesty. Their history is interesting, their literature likewise. Many of the better authors nowadays are women, not the bandwagon-butch anti-apartheid heroes such as Brink and Breytenbach. In the same way as German literature is not endless pale reflections of "Mein Kampf", so too have the Afrikaners developed a sophisticated prose and poetry. They are best at short-stories.