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Sparkenbroke
" Pour ne pas être tenté d'espérer davantage, il fixa son regard sur les lèvres de la jeune fille et sur ses yeux, pendant qu'elle parlait, il s'aperçut combien il gagnait facilement sa confiance, et en ressentit ce mélange de plaisir et d'ennui qu'on éprouve devant un adversaire trop fragile, sans défense. " Quand la vie est si courte, pourquoi s'embarrasser de règles sociales qui nous empêchent d'être heureux ? Mais comment savourer son propre bonheur, s'il fait souffrir les êtres qui nous sont chers ? Mary, à l'aube de sa vie de femme, doit faire ce choix douloureux entre un mari et un amant. Dans les années 1920, à l'ombre d'un château anglais et sons le soleil de Toscane, ce chef-d'oeuvre de Charles Morgan renouvelle le schéma de la tragédie classique. Il dissèque la passion et ses prémices, entre un lord anglais poète de génie, et la jeune épouse de son meilleur ami.
626 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1936
About the author
Charles Morgan
119 books25 followersCharles Langbridge Morgan was a playwright and novelist of English and Welsh parentage. The main themes of his work were, as he himself put it, "Art, Love, and Death", and the relation between them. Themes of individual novels range from the paradoxes of freedom (The Voyage, The River Line), through passionate love seen from within (Portrait in a Mirror) and without (A Breeze of Morning), to the conflict of good and evil (The Judge's Story) and the enchanted boundary of death (Sparkenbroke).
Morgan was educated at the Naval Colleges of Osborne and Dartmouth and served as a midshipman in the China Fleet until 1913. On the outbreak of war he was sent with Churchill's Naval Division to the defence of Antwerp. He was interned in Holland which provided the setting for his best-selling novel The Fountain.
He married the Welsh novelist Hilda Vaughan in 1923.
He was the drama critic of The Times from the 1920s until 1938, and contributed weekly articles on the London theatre to the New York Times. His first play, The Flashing Stream (1938), had successful runs in London and Paris but was not well received in New York. The River Line (1952) was originally written as a novel in 1949 and concerned the activities of escaped British prisoners of war in France.
He was awarded the French Legion of Honour in 1936, a promotion in 1945, and was elected a member of the Institut de France in 1949. From 1953 he was the president of International PEN.
While Morgan enjoyed an immense reputation during his lifetime and was awarded the 1940 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, he was sometimes criticised for excessive seriousness, and for some time 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. It has banished tragedy from our theatre, eloquence from our debates, glory from our years of peace, splendour from our wars..." The character Gerard Challis in Stella Gibbons's Westwood is thought to be a caricature of him.
Morgan was educated at the Naval Colleges of Osborne and Dartmouth and served as a midshipman in the China Fleet until 1913. On the outbreak of war he was sent with Churchill's Naval Division to the defence of Antwerp. He was interned in Holland which provided the setting for his best-selling novel The Fountain.
He married the Welsh novelist Hilda Vaughan in 1923.
He was the drama critic of The Times from the 1920s until 1938, and contributed weekly articles on the London theatre to the New York Times. His first play, The Flashing Stream (1938), had successful runs in London and Paris but was not well received in New York. The River Line (1952) was originally written as a novel in 1949 and concerned the activities of escaped British prisoners of war in France.
He was awarded the French Legion of Honour in 1936, a promotion in 1945, and was elected a member of the Institut de France in 1949. From 1953 he was the president of International PEN.
While Morgan enjoyed an immense reputation during his lifetime and was awarded the 1940 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, he was sometimes criticised for excessive seriousness, and for some time 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. It has banished tragedy from our theatre, eloquence from our debates, glory from our years of peace, splendour from our wars..." The character Gerard Challis in Stella Gibbons's Westwood is thought to be a caricature of him.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 26, 2015
I found this 1936 book in a secondhand bookshop in Istanbul and bought it for its striking cover and for some echo that the author's name sounded in my mind. It cost me about a quid and turned out to be a first edition. Wikipedia tells me that Morgan's reputation during his lifetime was 'immense' and other internet sites were evidence that he is still remembered, and read, here and there, especially in France. Part of my curiosity in reading the book was to see why a writer of the 30s with an immense reputation has been largely forgotten while books by authors such as Lawrence, Huxley and Orwell are still reprinted and sold in large quantities. It's a naive question, I know, but still...
The book is over-long and its main ideas over-emphasised through repetition. The main character (Sparkenbroke) is a powerful and original figure although never really likeable. His wife and, especially, his mistress, are much more likeable and the latter, who is in love with him and marries someone else, is the real centre of interest. Her battle with herself as to whether she will make love with Sparkenbroke, even though she is deeply attached to her husband, provides the major moral and dramatic dynamic of the tale. Perhaps that makes it dated. Who now cares about adultery (in fiction)? But it is a period piece (more so than Lawrence)and the woman's dilemma, to me at least, was real and affecting.
There is also an element of mysticism which is intrıguing, even if not entirely successful. In this it's more reminiscent of John Cowper Powys, from that era. One suspects that the way Powys has been ignored by the Great Tradition (and therefore by school syllabuses) has to do with exactly that mystical strain.
Here's part of a speech from Morgan's reliable, modest, un-mystical doctor, who has been present at many deaths: 'You watch a man die that you've known all your life and, quite suddenly, in the moment of death he becomes a stranger. He's not finding something new; he's finding something old, something familiar to him in the way that his childhood would be familiar if he could re-enter it. It seems always to have existed within him and to have been rediscovered now. And it takes the whole of him into itself. His sins, anxieties, his ambitions, his friends all fall away and he's left - alone. Single-minded at last. Unassailable.'
Is 'Sparkenbroke' as good as Morgan's still fashionable contemporaries? Better than Huxley, I reckon, and the Orwell novels of the 30s, probably, but Lawrence ... well, you'd have to give five stars to The Rainbow, wouldn't you, or to Women in Love or Sons and Lovers, despite the odd bits? The comparisons are invidious of course. Orwell is known for Animal Farm and the journalism, Huxley for The Doors of Perception and The Perennial Philosophy. Morgan's most popular book, incidentally, was The Fountain, and some of his best writing, apparently, is to be found in some shorter, later stories, such as The Judge's Story.
The book is over-long and its main ideas over-emphasised through repetition. The main character (Sparkenbroke) is a powerful and original figure although never really likeable. His wife and, especially, his mistress, are much more likeable and the latter, who is in love with him and marries someone else, is the real centre of interest. Her battle with herself as to whether she will make love with Sparkenbroke, even though she is deeply attached to her husband, provides the major moral and dramatic dynamic of the tale. Perhaps that makes it dated. Who now cares about adultery (in fiction)? But it is a period piece (more so than Lawrence)and the woman's dilemma, to me at least, was real and affecting.
There is also an element of mysticism which is intrıguing, even if not entirely successful. In this it's more reminiscent of John Cowper Powys, from that era. One suspects that the way Powys has been ignored by the Great Tradition (and therefore by school syllabuses) has to do with exactly that mystical strain.
Here's part of a speech from Morgan's reliable, modest, un-mystical doctor, who has been present at many deaths: 'You watch a man die that you've known all your life and, quite suddenly, in the moment of death he becomes a stranger. He's not finding something new; he's finding something old, something familiar to him in the way that his childhood would be familiar if he could re-enter it. It seems always to have existed within him and to have been rediscovered now. And it takes the whole of him into itself. His sins, anxieties, his ambitions, his friends all fall away and he's left - alone. Single-minded at last. Unassailable.'
Is 'Sparkenbroke' as good as Morgan's still fashionable contemporaries? Better than Huxley, I reckon, and the Orwell novels of the 30s, probably, but Lawrence ... well, you'd have to give five stars to The Rainbow, wouldn't you, or to Women in Love or Sons and Lovers, despite the odd bits? The comparisons are invidious of course. Orwell is known for Animal Farm and the journalism, Huxley for The Doors of Perception and The Perennial Philosophy. Morgan's most popular book, incidentally, was The Fountain, and some of his best writing, apparently, is to be found in some shorter, later stories, such as The Judge's Story.
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April 19, 2016The subject matter in this book is death, its meaning, and relevance in life. Morgan must have read Freud's, Das Ego und das Id; there is a long piece during which the reader is cast straight back into this text ( l accept that a reader not familiar with Freud's work will not get this reference, although it is not subtle). Piers is characterized as tormented, as warring with different facets of his self; this is a deep enquiry, although not on a par with feminist theory of the late twentieth century, on the self since it predates it; Freud's work lacked this ability towards self consciousness, and Morgan's work, with the hindsight of modern theory lack's progression and seems a little dated now, since Mary is very one dimensional as a character. Morgan hints though early on that this is a simple tale, drawn from Little Red Riding Hood, and he delivers this plot cleverly. Our understanding of what it means to be a woman has moved on from the idea that she is simply a vessel or muse for a male loss, although, more than anything Morgan describes this through his depiction of the relationships of Mary, Piers, and the doctor, George. This is a metafiction or surfiction; so it is self-conscious in relation to its own genesis; this gives it great depth; it also hints at its autobiographical status early on. I would like to re-read it after reading some of the texts to which it is referring; there is a deep mystery in this text which tempts the reader to discover who the protagonists really are, especially Mary who is writing a Journal.
November 14, 2012
My all time favorite book, ever, always...
December 1, 2010
I'm so disappointed. Charles Morgan is one of my favorite authors. I couldn't believe my luck at finding one of his books, not to mention one I hadn't read yet, at the library. I could only flog my way through the first half. Morgan really could have used a good editor. His writing style here leans towards the self indulgent. That and his sentences are often impossible to decipher and go on for ages. Don't even get me started on the paternalistic tone that is taken towards the key female character. I want to cry.
For those that are going to read Morgan's books, stick to The Voyage and The Fountain.
For those that are going to read Morgan's books, stick to The Voyage and The Fountain.
July 22, 2026
Esta larga novela publicada en 1936, que reconozco que desconocía por completo título y autor, cayó en mis manos por pura casualidad: me la encontré abandonada junto a otros libros en la calle. Mi síndrome de Diógenes literario no se pudo resistir y empecé a leerla. Se trata de la edición de Plaza y Janés de 1973 en la serie “El arca de papel”. Es curioso que aquí el traductor o el editor cambió el título original “Sparkenbroke” (nombre del personaje principal) por el curioso y poético “La llamada infinita” (aunque pone entre paréntesis el título original). Entrando en materia, el libro nos presenta a un poeta de familia de Lores (Sparkenbroke), caprichoso y romántico y sus problemas creativos y amorosos. También tenemos a un amigo del ilustre bardo, el médico del pueblo George, su hermana maestra y el padre de ambos, el pastor protestante, maestro vocacional. El problema que le encuentro a la novela es el anticuado estilo: frases enrevesadas y larguísimas, presuntamente poéticas (a veces rozan lo cursi), ritmo demorado y contemplativo. Copio una frase creo que característica para hacerse una idea de este estilo. Pongo en situación: el maduro doctor acoge en su casa a la bellísima Mary de la que está secretamente enamorado (ella está prometida a un rico jugador de cricket) y Morgan nos cuenta lo siguiente: "Lo que de su juventud y su frescor la separaban de él habíase disuelto, y ahora podía sentir en compañía de ella, no ciertamente el benévolo afecto que antes de que el deseo lo consumiera parecíale el máximo consuelo, ni tampoco el hambre que había sucedido al deseo, sino una intimidad creciente y luminosa; y su cuerpo tumbado en la butaca, el muelle abandono de su desfallecimiento, la línea de la mejilla ladeada, la fluidez del cuello, llenáronle de esa emoción que tiende a la belleza y que, elevando al espectador hasta la esencia inmanente de la belleza visible, crea dentro del deseo aquella ilusión de inmortalidad que toma el nombre de amor. El impulso físico continúa, pero en un mecerse intermitente y lento, del mismo modo que la marcha de un buque, sin dejar de ser constante, deja de parecerlo a los ojos del viajero, cuando la nave discurre sobre aguas tranquilas. Y George, adormecido su anhelo por ella en un reposo apasionado, sintióse finalmente en paz.” A mí, este fragmento y muchos otros me marean un poco. Sinceramente, no me queda claro lo que piensa el pobre George. Pero la frase “ilusión de inmortalidad que toma el nombre de amor” no está mal. Hoy nos suena un poco cursi. Entiendo que la novela no se haya vuelto a reeditar y haya caído en el total olvido. El estilo de Charles Morgan suena demasiado poético y filosófico, lo que antes se entendía por “alta literatura” o “estilo elevado”. Quien esté dispuesto a hacer un esfuerzo y sumergirse en la prosa lenta, descriptiva, meticulosa y a veces relamida y cursi de Morgan encontrará algún momento memorable y personajes que tardan en olvidarse. Yo me quedo con el sensato doctor de pueblo hijo del pastor protestante amigo del poeta aristócrata Sparkenbroke. La oposición entre ambos personajes especialmente en relación a la bellísima Mary está muy conseguida y no cae en obviedades. Tras acabar el libro, me he reconciliado en parte con el autor por su bello y conmovedor final no exento de ironía inglesa. No me resisto a transcribirlo (atención spoiler). Pongo en situación: la bellísima esposa del doctor George, enamorada del poeta Piers Sparkenbroke, acude a la cita con éste para fugarse de su vida rutinaria pero tranquila. Se encuentra llena de angustia e incluso intenta suicidarse ahorcándose. No lo consigue y vuelve al casto hogar familiar y se acuesta. Cuando aparece el doctor, que había leído la carta de despedida y perdonado a su esposa, nos dice Morgan: “...se acercó a la cama, pero antes levantó la luz para ver otra vez a Mary. La cabeza descansaba en la almohada; suspiró; tal vez estaba dormida de veras. “Ha vuelto-pensó-; ha elegido”, y, preguntándose cuál había sido su sufrimiento, descubrió en su carne la oscura señal de la cuerda. En aquel momento, hubiera proferido un grito, despertándola; pero se contuvo, porque George era un hombre que siempre sabía cuándo era menester tener la boca cerrada”. Este conmovedor e irónico final para mí vale por todo el libro. Para mí merece al menos un 7 y debería ser reeditada.
September 15, 2023
Cine este Charles Morgan? De ce nu știam de acest autor? Cine l-a ascuns de noi?
June 19, 2016
how can you not love romance and philosophy!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews