Critical Passions: Selected Essays Book

A mixed baggage. I would have given 3 and a half if I had the option. The best of all was the first story "Enoch Soames". We have our narrator(Beerbohm himself) being a friend to a writer called Enoch Soames, who for all reasons unknown and best, neglected by all. He is introduced as a measured, reserved, a man of some social outlook, yet despised and belittled by all. We get a glimpse of his work through the narrator's judgement on the only book he has published. One day, when Enoch Soames discloses his eagerness for fame to the narrator and by "chance" the devil had happened to eavesdrop the conversation, it wishes to offer a hand for remedy. A Faustian play ensues, except that instead of fame, our author is given a chance to fly past to the future - by 100 years to check whether he has been posthumously acknowledged of his literary talent.

The surprising thing about Beerbohm writing was his underplayed description or treatment of supernatural or otherworldly bent.
Even when we are introduced to the devil, he is a pretty man-like figure.

Devil, in the words of Beerbohm:

On one side sat a tall, flashy, rather Mephistophelian man. His nose was predatory, and the points of his moustache, waxed up beyond his nostrils, gave a fixity to his
smile. Decidedly, he was sinister. And my sense of discomfort
in his presence was intensified by the scarlet waistcoat which
tightly, and so unseasonably in June, sheathed his ample chest.
This waistcoat wasn't wrong merely because of the heat, either.
It was somehow all wrong in itself. It wouldn't have done on
Christmas morning. It would have struck a jarring note at the
first night of `Hernani.

I was sure he was not an Englishman, but
what was his nationality? Though his jet-black hair was en
brosse, I did not think he was French. To Berthe, who waited
on him, he spoke French fluently, but with a hardly native idiom
and accent.

The unknown, other-worldliness comes only from his un-British qualities or social status at best, not out of his devilish quality.

There are five stories along with this, except one story almost all had in variant degrees a touch of the supernatural or fantastic element to it.

I was wondering as to how the same stories might have been treated by a writer like E.T.A Hoffman - it would have been filled with strange, terrifying and frightful characters. One just needs to read one short story of Hoffman and read Beerbohm to see the contrast of styles.
Even the humor, except for few places, are very much toned down.

The second story "Hilary Maltby and Stephen Braxton" was a very good one too. It was about jealousy and envy between two writers with a touch of supernatural element again. Even though the element of supernatural is explicit here, like the first story, the writer still treats it with more of a psychological angle rather than created by an extraneous element. There is a middle ground that is striked between psychological crisis and supernatural occurrence. In this story we also get a good glimpse of the aristocratic haughtiness and snobbery of the late 19th century England.

James Pethel is the third story. Reading it, I was reminded of the main character from the French film Bob Le Flameur, directed by Melville. Both of them valued passion over prudence. The character tends, frequently towards his capriciousness. Anyway, It was the most underwhelming story of the book.

The fourth story is " A.V Laider". This story had the same theme which piqued my interest in the third story, yet this was handled very beautifully by the writer. What starts out as a normal discussion between the narrator and the main character on the subject of metaphysics, drifts to palmistry, and then propels completely off the chart towards a murderous story, and finishes with a touch of ambiguity. I am pleased! I still haven't disclosed anything substantial in the story.

The fifth story is " 'Savonarola' Brown". Another story which didn't interest apart from few eccentricity and indulgence of my own. It has a play attached to it as the part of the story, which has a language of middle English and I was enjoying myself with its flowing verses.

His writing is as if it kisses the surface, even when keeping an eye on details it wasn't directionless except for two stories. His language was as if he was caressing over our body with a feather than a regular thump and since almost all the stories were tending towards something suspenseful it was a reaping read. His language and narration flows so smoothly that one forgives for a lack of vitality here and there.

I yet to read his most famous Zuleika Dobson, considered one of the bests of British humor stories. I also haven't read any of his essays(he is considered foremost as an essayist than a novelist). I hope I can enjoy his brilliance in one whole work as a novel than sparks of magic spattered in bits and pieces, like here.

Before I leave you, I will share a few good quotes from the book:

I was glad when, on my second evening, I found seated at the table opposite to mine another guest. I was the gladder because he was just the right kind of guest. He was enigmatic. By this I mean that he did not look soldierly or financial or artistic or anything definite at all. He offered a clean slate for speculation. And, thank heaven! he evidently wasn't going to spoil the fun by engaging me in conversation later on. A decently unsociable man, anxious to be left alone.


I was glad to do so. It flashed across my mind that yonder on the terrace he might suddenly blurt out: "I say, look here, don't think me awfully impertinent, but this money's no earthly use to me. I do wish you'd accept it as a very small return for all the pleasure your work has given me, and-- There, please! Not another word!"--all with such candor, delicacy, and genuine zeal that I should be unable to refuse. But I must not raise false hopes in my reader. Nothing of the sort happened. Nothing of that sort ever does happen.


Then are parrots rational
When they regurgitate the thing they hear!
This fool is but an unit of the crowd,
And crowds are senseless as the vasty deep
That sinks or surges as the moon dictates.
I know these crowds, and know that any man
That hath a glib tongue and a rolling eye
Can as he willeth with them.

I rose again when the wife drifted to my table, followed by
the husband with two steaming plates. She asked me if it wasn't a
heavenly morning, and I replied with nervous enthusiasm that it was.
She then ate kedgeree in silence. "You just finishing, what?" the
husband asked, looking at my plate. "Oh, no--no--only just
beginning," I assured him, and helped myself to butter. He then ate
kedgeree in silence. He looked like some splendid bull, and she like
some splendid cow, grazing. I envied them their eupeptic calm. I
surmised that ten thousand Braxtons would not have prevented THEM from
sleeping soundly by night and grazing steadily by day. Perhaps their
stolidity infected me a little. Or perhaps what braced me was the
great quantity of strong tea that I consumed. Anyhow I had begun to
feel that if Braxton came in now I shouldn't blench nor falter.


I did not think that in this cloister'd spot
There would be so much doing. I had look'd
To find Savonarola all alone
And tempt him in his uneventful cell.
Instead o' which--Spurn'd am I? I am I.
There was a time, Sir, look to 't! O damnation!
What is 't? Anon then! These my toys, my gauds,
That in the cradle--aye, 't my mother's breast--
I puled and lisped at,--'Tis impossible,
Tho', faith, 'tis not so, forasmuch as 'tis.
And I a daughter of the Borgias!--
Or so they told me. Liars! Flatterers!
Currying lick-spoons! Where's the Hell of 't then?
'Tis time that I were going. Farewell, Monk,
But I'll avenge me ere the sun has sunk.


From p. 234 of `Inglish Littracher 1890-1900' bi T. K. Nupton,
publishd bi th Stait, 1992:

`Fr egzarmpl, a riter ov th time, naimd Max Beerbohm, hoo woz
stil alive in th twentieth senchri, rote a stauri in wich e pautraid
an immajnari karrakter kauld "Enoch Soames"--a thurd-rait poit
hoo beleevz imself a grate jeneus an maix a bargin with th
Devvl in auder ter no wot posterriti thinx ov im! It iz a sumwot
labud sattire but not without vallu az showing hou seriusli the
yung men ov th aiteen-ninetiz took themselvz. Nou that the
littreri profeshn haz bin auganized az a departmnt of publik
servis, our riters hav found their levvl an hav lernt ter doo their
duti without thort ov th morro. "Th laibrer iz werthi ov hiz
hire," an that iz aul. Thank hevvn we hav no Enoch Soameses
amung us to-dai!'


And the last quote is one of my favorites for reasons beyond the book. Lately, there are many simpletons posing themselves as an authority in politics, films, medicine, and what not. My country or the state may be a singular case of this, but nevertheless, it is there and that is a cause for worry. I don't understand when did this ultracrepidarianism became a vogue. So to quote from the book:

He said he had looked into it, `but,' he added
crisply, `I don't profess to know anything about writing.' A
reservation very characteristic of the period! Painters would not
then allow that any one outside their own order had a right to
any opinion about painting. This law (graven on the tablets
brought down by Whistler from the summit of Fujiyama)
imposed certain limitations. If other arts than painting were not
utterly unintelligible to all but the men who practised them, the
law tottered--the Monroe Doctrine, as it were, did not hold
good. Therefore no painter would offer an opinion of a book
without warning you at any rate that his opinion was worthless.
No one is a better judge of literature than Rothenstein; but it
wouldn't have done to tell him so in those days; and I knew that
I must form an unaided judgment on `Negations.'


Can't say better than the writer. I rest my case.