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The Complete Stories
The short stories of Mary Butts (1890-1937) possess an intriguing relation to the present moment. They both embody their time (the Lost Generation during the '20s and '30s) and possess a stylistic freshness and intellectual breadth that feels very akin to our present day. As John Ashbery remarks in his preface, "After reading Butts one is left with an impression of dazzle, of magic, but what made it is hard to pin down...One keeps getting the feeling that these stories were written yesterday."
Now, for the first time in a single volume, all three of her story collections have been gathered, and seven uncollected stories have been added (including two pieces never before published). The power of hidden things and things of hidden power preoccupy these distinctive tales of love and betrayal, magic and mummery, belief and folly. Here, in the realm of active imagination, the veil between natural and supernatural may be rent apart in an instant, and just as quickly restored.
The novelist and poet Glenway Wescott declared Mary Butts' first collection of stories, Speed the Plough, "the announcement of a new intellect, acute and passionate, to scrutinize experience with an unfamiliar penetration," which he then went on to compare with James Joyce's Dubliners. Marianne Moore, Evelyn Waugh, HD, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Ford Madox Ford, and Virgil Thomson all championed her work, and during her tragically brief lifetime Mary Butts' reputation rivaled Katherine Mansfield's and Virginia Woolf's. Her style is swift, elliptical and emotionally charged, exactly matched to the free-wheeling lives of her characters in Paris and London during an explosive era.
Now, for the first time in a single volume, all three of her story collections have been gathered, and seven uncollected stories have been added (including two pieces never before published). The power of hidden things and things of hidden power preoccupy these distinctive tales of love and betrayal, magic and mummery, belief and folly. Here, in the realm of active imagination, the veil between natural and supernatural may be rent apart in an instant, and just as quickly restored.
The novelist and poet Glenway Wescott declared Mary Butts' first collection of stories, Speed the Plough, "the announcement of a new intellect, acute and passionate, to scrutinize experience with an unfamiliar penetration," which he then went on to compare with James Joyce's Dubliners. Marianne Moore, Evelyn Waugh, HD, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Ford Madox Ford, and Virgil Thomson all championed her work, and during her tragically brief lifetime Mary Butts' reputation rivaled Katherine Mansfield's and Virginia Woolf's. Her style is swift, elliptical and emotionally charged, exactly matched to the free-wheeling lives of her characters in Paris and London during an explosive era.
432 pages, Paperback
First published December 15, 2014
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371 people want to read
About the author
Mary Butts
46 books22 followersMary Francis Butts was a modernist writer whose work found recognition in important literary magazines of the time, as well as from some of her fellow modernists, T. S. Eliot, Hilda Dolittle, and Bryher. After her death, her works fell into obscurity until they began to be republished in the 1980s.
Butts was a student of the occultist Aleister Crowley, and as one of several students who worked with him on his Magick (Book 4) in 1912, she was given co-author credit. She was married to poet, publisher, and pacifist John Rodker from 1918 to 1927; their daughter, Camilla, was born in 1920.
Butts was a student of the occultist Aleister Crowley, and as one of several students who worked with him on his Magick (Book 4) in 1912, she was given co-author credit. She was married to poet, publisher, and pacifist John Rodker from 1918 to 1927; their daughter, Camilla, was born in 1920.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 13, 2021
Occasionally, very occasionally, one stumbles across a writer whose writing changes one's entire outlook on the act and product of writing itself. There are various degrees of such a revelation, and I've discovered these insights several times. But once in a long while, a very long while, another's writing fundamentally cracks an author's foundation, forcing them to look at their own output with new eyes. It's not just a function of imposter syndrome (believe me, I experienced that when I started graduate school - I still reel a bit from that experience, twenty years gone now), it is a serious reconsideration of the craft of writing, a hard look at the deep structure, the longue durée, if you will, of one's writing history. Mary Butts' The Complete Stories has caused such a paradigm shift in me.
Now, I don't desire to mimic her exquisite work. She has her voice(s) and I have mine. But reading Butts' writing has caused serious self-reflection on the craft of my own writing - not the placement of verbs, the number of adjectives to use, the clever use of a semicolon, but the thought process that comes long before the pen actually bleeds onto the paper and the act of sounding out both the phraseology and subtle meaning of the words chosen. Reading this book is causing me to think much more carefully about my writing. This does not, however, mean that I plan on showing more restraint in my writing (as one book reviewer publicly advised that I do many years ago . . . what was his name? I forget. The world has forgotten). On the contrary, I feel a sense of impending freedom, a return to some of the vigor of my more experimental works, but with a more steady, sure hand.
What is it that has caused this epiphany? Honestly, it's hard to tell. It's not the subject matter, which is usually a social situation of some kind or another, oftentimes within or involving a group of bohemian artists and decadence (though long after the demise of Bohemia as an independent kingdom and the decadent movement). It's not the characters, though I thought the characterizations were good, sometimes great - I would LOVE to see an entire novel or perhaps even more of the main antagonist (and he is just that) in "Honey, Get Your Gun". It's not the setting - often Paris from the 1920s to the 1930s (?) is interesting enough, but not so astounding as, say, Berlin during the same period. It's not the plots; many of these stories seem essentially plotless or the plot is so subtle as to be barely detectable.
Honestly, the subtlety itself may be the "it" I am looking for. It can be thoroughly off-putting at first, but once one has caught the rhythm of a Mary Butts story, one knows one is ensconced in it. There really is no escape, once you've given yourself up to the mystery. And I mean that quite literally - not mystery as a genre (there is precious little of that ilk here), but the mystery of "just what the heck am I reading?" followed by the slowly dawning realization that . . . it just doesn't matter! If you allow yourself into these stories, you will often come out of the other end not knowing exactly what happened, but knowing that something significant happened, maybe even something with meaning. The fact that you will continue to quiz yourself on what the meaning is . . . well, that in and of itself gives the story some meaning, doesn't it?
As I review my notes to the stories, I see more question marks than in any other review I've done. The Complete Stories is baffling, frustratingly so, at times. But the fact that so many of these short tales have lingered in my mind so long and so powerfully, attests to their staying power, despite (or perhaps because of) a lack of full comprehension in my reading.
In other words, if you're one of those people who must have closure in your stories - don't read this book. You're going to hate it.
If, on the other hand, you are comfortable with or even excited by vagaries in fiction, this is your book. I should have guessed I would enjoy it, given my rather open-ended acceptance of "difficult" texts and Mark Valentine's praise of Mary Butts' work. At first, though, it was tough going. I had to accept that there was much that I did not understand and let myself feel that this was okay. Walk by faith, I guess, stepping into the darkness until only one step ahead is visible, as the old allegory goes. I'm glad I took each story as its own step (sometimes a series of steps). I can't say exactly where I arrived, in the end, but here is my journey, with commentary on each story:
I noted that, from the first story: If "Speed the Plow" is any indicator, I am going to like Mary Butts' work very, very, very much. The stream of consciousness of Beckett, but the poetics of a Huysman or a Rilke peeking out from behind the banalities. This is off to a smashing start. This is the type of writing one has to go back and reread each paragraph, partly for comprehension, but, really, mostly for the sheer awe inspired by the writing.
Did I understand "In Bayswater" from beginning to end? No. It's convoluted, a bit of a mess. But that prose is exquisite. And I was able to follow along well enough the first time through. A second reading would do much to tie it all together, but I'm not ready for that now. Some other time. Still good enough in structure to carry on and beautiful, beautiful writing and dialogue. Borderline decadent.
"Bellerophon to Anteia" is the Corinthian hero's underworld journey, but it is unlike any other hero's underworld journey, full of grief and regret and a pyrrhic victory, at best.
The trees, that were a row of whistles for the wind, grew small out of the bright grass.
Call me petty, but little gems like this one from "Angele au Couvent" are what make Mary Butts' stories "sing," despite their sometimes choppy presentation. Like diamonds against a foil of black construction paper. There is a certain charm there that I must admit I like.
"Angele au Couvent" - what to make of this? A young girl in school, perhaps studying to be a nun (?) comes to the realization that she will never find happiness there, but only in literature. And yet, the story ends with a beginning that does not hold much hope for a "literary" future, but rather the edge of a life storm where she will be tossed about to and fro by the ravages of society. Or perhaps it is not?
"In the Street" is a short monologue by . . . who knows? A madwoman? A spurned lover? A cast off whore? All of these things, perhaps, or none of them. This is a woman that Beckett would have heard in his mental echo chambers, a "lost one," a vagrant or, perhaps, a mad princess. It is so hard to tell. And by hard to tell, I mean "telling". She is all of these and less and more.
Is "The Golden Bough" a retelling of the Fisher King set in 1920s London? Difficult to say, though there is the self-sacrifice. But here, at least two of the characters are self-admittedly mad, having been institutionalized at one point. And yet, one questions who here is sane and who is not? Perhaps the cast of unreliable characters will never allow the mystery to be unraveled. Could it ever be? Should it?
What happened "In the South"? Something very old, ancient, even. Something undying, like eternity, like love. And what is signified by the terms "brother" and "sister"? Something deeper and more meaningful than shared parentage, something unknowable and absolutely unbreakable.
Young Mary finds that being overshadowed by the Holy Ghost and seeing an angel is . . . complicated and wrought with danger in "Maddona of the Magnificat".
"Widdershins" is an unravelling labyrinth of social entanglement. Dick Tressider discovers that no instantaneous magic can give him the standing he desires and, in fact, he might never attain the status and place he desires. At least this is how I interpret this choppy narrative, but of flotsam swirling in an undoing.
"The Dinner Party" is a social labyrinth that we are taken through from the view of a wanderer therein. At the center lies the Minotaur, and it is every bit as horrifying as that terrible beast. Perhaps even more so for the facade of "culture" around it. An outstanding expose of manners and social pressure. Devastating, in the end.
I had to reread "Brightness Falls" to fully grasp it (though it is not "graspable" and intentionally not so). On the second read, I realized how absolutely masterful the story is. My favorite up to this point. Is it about jealousy and winsomeness, or witchcraft and liminal dimensions, or hypnotism and a Freudian obstacle course? I take the fantastical view myself, with an acknowledgement of the humor veined throughout.
What happens to old, perverse Greek heroes when they seemingly retire from . . . hero-ing? "The Later Life of Theseus, King of Athens" sheds some light - and some darkness - on those golden years. Just remember that, as the economists say, "debt never sleeps". And it will be repaid. It will.
A bit of a dark comedy of manners does not allow one to simply laugh off the sinister story "In Bloomsbury," about a staid aristocratic family and their beastly (their word, I think) cousins from South Africa. It's a disturbing commentary about racism, colonialism, and the upper-class sense of superiority. And yet, here Butts' dexterity with language is clearly apparent. She describes the dawning realization of murder - fratricide and matricide, no less - in beautiful terms:
"Essential daylight, colourless and clean" filled the room. The fire sulked. The hour was unpropitious for the turn of the event. Besides, what were we to do? Julian went on: "I made an under-statement. They spoke of their victims in the plural: referred to "them." The woman, I suppose, their stepmother." Situations which sink in. All their little peculiarities which had hitherto delighted us, reseen in this light. Revision at dawn. Of murder; of blood on black ivory skins. Polished boxwood and scarlet; two bodies who would stay dead.
"Friendship's Garland" seems to be about transitions, from old age to young, from human sociality, with all its pretense and stresses, to the seclusion of nature and the accompanying opportunity to see oneself in their purest form.
"Green" may be a story about a newly-married couple and the interpolation of an old "friend" of the husband who may or may not have been a lover in the midst of what may or may not be a love triangle in which the husband's mother (also admired of the husband's may or may not have been ex- or maybe not-ex-lover) may or may not have interfered in said maybe-but-maybe-not affair. It's all so platonic and careful.
I got a strong du Maurier vibe from "The House Party," with echoes of Trilby throughout: a group of decadent friends, all of whom might or might not be gay, who negotiate the intricacies of social standing and sociality, all with a sinister background character (in this case, The Pimp) who inadvertently reveals things about oneself to oneself. One of the stronger stories in the first half of the book.
"Look Homeward, Angel" is a somber piece that shows a restraint absent from earlier stories. Perhaps it is this sense of restraint that makes it so emotionally affecting. There's a certain resigned sadness here, in the liminal space between memorial and grief. This is one of Butts' later stories and it's maturity shows. It's the most beautiful story in the volume so far, absent of hyperbole and all the better for it.
"The Guest" is about, well, the guest . . . to a husband and wife and a "friend" of vague intentions. Vague enough that the guest himself takes umbrage with the whole affair (or is there really an affair)? All is not as it seems, except for the excellent writing. The stream of consciousness bits are portrayed parenthetically, which makes for much easier reading comprehension.
A fictionalized account of the true story (!) of the young Julius Ceasar being kidnapped by pirates whom he later came back to crucify, "A Roman Speaks" presents the general on the cusp of assuming dictatorial power. Here Caesar presents his story of capture, life among the pirates, ransom, and his promised crucifixion of his captors (who thought it was a joke until it happened). An interesting insight into the man.
Friends meet friends and become enemies in "The Warning," a cautionary tale (telegraphed by the title). Sometimes it's best to keep one's associates siloed away from each other. We've all had this experience, but never so eloquently.
Mary Butts' work demands your attention. In some tales, every word counts. "Mappa Mundi" is a truly weird tale that requires your focus as a reader. The diligent reader is well-rewarded here. I had to go back and reread several sections twice, but once I got my focus and the brain grasped what was happening - or what might have happened - a door opened into a labyrinth . . .
"A Lover"? A lie. A deceit that makes a mockery of love, even of friendship. Dissimulation cracks its head open against The Truth, and one lover must simply walk away. This seems to be a theme in many of the stories in this collection. Deceit couched in the most beautiful of words, but what are words, other than masks? Layer upon layer of fiction. All of it false, yet speaking truth.
I have not fallen in love and had my heart broken in the city of Paris after finding that the object of my devotion had been thoroughly corrupted by an evil sorceress and her coterie of cruel followers; not until I had read "From Altar to Chimney-piece". This story will stick in my brain for a long, long time. The ambiguity of supernatural power next to social corruption is delicious and wretched. Butts is a master.
Butts channels M.R. James in "With and Without Buttons," and the story is James-worthy, but with a hint of dark comedy throughout. A delightful, creepy story, with Butts' trademark turns of phrase scattered here and there . . . like stray gloves . . .
"After the Funeral" pulls off a triple-feat by putting the focus on a dead woman after her funeral, damning the shallowness of sociality, and showing a myth, albeit a private one, in the making. It is the echoes of the tale, between the lines, outside of the actual words, which interest me the most; that life beyond the veil, or that death. One wants to walk past the foreground and find the underpinnings.
Chaos reigns in "The House" as two pairs of renters sublet while on vacation. In the meantime, a new landlord purchases the property. Not-quite Jeeves and Wooster funny, nor Howard's End dramatic, Butt's story is . . . alright. With a touch of understated flair. Very English, one could say. Everything's alright. "Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way . . .".
A young, self-loathing American overseas practices cynicism with great elan. As stated earlier, I would love to read an entire novel about the main character in "Honey, Get Your Gun " a miscreant antihero that Nick Cave would be pleased to celebrate in one of his darker songs. It's a gloriously dark rumination and one of the more compelling characterizations I've ever read in this short of a piece of fiction. Depressing; oustanding!
There are bushels of bitter melancholy for such a small piece as "In the House". Poverty, death, unfulfilled promises, the breaking of familial trust, and decay are all suffused throughout. A poignant piece, but very depressing if you dwell on it too long. Sadness incarnate.
"Lettres Imaginaires" is a one-sided correspondence from a spurned woman who may or may not be a goddess to a man who may or may not be a god. Butts captures the sense of loss and the yearning for the repair of a broken heart one encounters when one is essentially abandoned. The narrator here, though, is smarter by miles than I was as a young man who encountered similar circumstances.
"A Vision" is simply that, a hallucinatory terrain trodden by mice, macaws, and angels, with a stark lesson in the futility of taking on the essence of God (even successfully - no, especially successfully). Assuming the character of God might incur the greatest flaws of all. Perfection is not all it's cracked up to be.
Scrying is the preferred method in "Magic," a purely meditative piece on the ascent into light, the descent into darkness. This could bear several readings, which is no small task for such a small story.
"Change" is actually about the lingering after-effects of change, specifically the ironies of being disinherited by one's wealthy family and living a life of poverty and shame - which has it's own richness and pride . . . of a sort.
The next tale is less about "A Magical Experiment" than it is such. Written in the 1920s in France, you can guess where the strong surrealism came from. It's largely nonsensical, but at certain moments it is startling. Probably the story most influenced by Crowley, though it would be easier to analyze if it was clear who was who. I need more context to understand this experiment.
"The Master's Last Dancing" is a bacchanalian riot of dance and violence and the shedding of all social graces. I can imagine the room full of flappers and gents in a Berlin jazz club, though this dance took place decades after that, another place, another time. Some things are timeless? A shocking, sad, story that asks, in the end, if it is actually funny or not?
"Fumerie" contends for my favorite piece in this volume. It's a decadent how-to guide, told in demonstrative vignettes and sometimes outright instruction, on the world of the opium smoker. I smoked opium twice, and it's a good thing I couldn't get my hands on more, because I really, REALLY liked it. This sometimes tongue-in-cheek piece of realism presents the sociality of the pipe with all its quirks. Brilliant.
The final untitled story is slight, but underscores the recurring theme of expatriate Americans in Paris, their brashness and clash of ideas or style with the locals. I suppose this story needs to be here for the volume to be The Complete Stories, but Butts has done this theme much more ably in other stories.
Strongly recommended!!!
Now, I don't desire to mimic her exquisite work. She has her voice(s) and I have mine. But reading Butts' writing has caused serious self-reflection on the craft of my own writing - not the placement of verbs, the number of adjectives to use, the clever use of a semicolon, but the thought process that comes long before the pen actually bleeds onto the paper and the act of sounding out both the phraseology and subtle meaning of the words chosen. Reading this book is causing me to think much more carefully about my writing. This does not, however, mean that I plan on showing more restraint in my writing (as one book reviewer publicly advised that I do many years ago . . . what was his name? I forget. The world has forgotten). On the contrary, I feel a sense of impending freedom, a return to some of the vigor of my more experimental works, but with a more steady, sure hand.
What is it that has caused this epiphany? Honestly, it's hard to tell. It's not the subject matter, which is usually a social situation of some kind or another, oftentimes within or involving a group of bohemian artists and decadence (though long after the demise of Bohemia as an independent kingdom and the decadent movement). It's not the characters, though I thought the characterizations were good, sometimes great - I would LOVE to see an entire novel or perhaps even more of the main antagonist (and he is just that) in "Honey, Get Your Gun". It's not the setting - often Paris from the 1920s to the 1930s (?) is interesting enough, but not so astounding as, say, Berlin during the same period. It's not the plots; many of these stories seem essentially plotless or the plot is so subtle as to be barely detectable.
Honestly, the subtlety itself may be the "it" I am looking for. It can be thoroughly off-putting at first, but once one has caught the rhythm of a Mary Butts story, one knows one is ensconced in it. There really is no escape, once you've given yourself up to the mystery. And I mean that quite literally - not mystery as a genre (there is precious little of that ilk here), but the mystery of "just what the heck am I reading?" followed by the slowly dawning realization that . . . it just doesn't matter! If you allow yourself into these stories, you will often come out of the other end not knowing exactly what happened, but knowing that something significant happened, maybe even something with meaning. The fact that you will continue to quiz yourself on what the meaning is . . . well, that in and of itself gives the story some meaning, doesn't it?
As I review my notes to the stories, I see more question marks than in any other review I've done. The Complete Stories is baffling, frustratingly so, at times. But the fact that so many of these short tales have lingered in my mind so long and so powerfully, attests to their staying power, despite (or perhaps because of) a lack of full comprehension in my reading.
In other words, if you're one of those people who must have closure in your stories - don't read this book. You're going to hate it.
If, on the other hand, you are comfortable with or even excited by vagaries in fiction, this is your book. I should have guessed I would enjoy it, given my rather open-ended acceptance of "difficult" texts and Mark Valentine's praise of Mary Butts' work. At first, though, it was tough going. I had to accept that there was much that I did not understand and let myself feel that this was okay. Walk by faith, I guess, stepping into the darkness until only one step ahead is visible, as the old allegory goes. I'm glad I took each story as its own step (sometimes a series of steps). I can't say exactly where I arrived, in the end, but here is my journey, with commentary on each story:
I noted that, from the first story: If "Speed the Plow" is any indicator, I am going to like Mary Butts' work very, very, very much. The stream of consciousness of Beckett, but the poetics of a Huysman or a Rilke peeking out from behind the banalities. This is off to a smashing start. This is the type of writing one has to go back and reread each paragraph, partly for comprehension, but, really, mostly for the sheer awe inspired by the writing.
Did I understand "In Bayswater" from beginning to end? No. It's convoluted, a bit of a mess. But that prose is exquisite. And I was able to follow along well enough the first time through. A second reading would do much to tie it all together, but I'm not ready for that now. Some other time. Still good enough in structure to carry on and beautiful, beautiful writing and dialogue. Borderline decadent.
"Bellerophon to Anteia" is the Corinthian hero's underworld journey, but it is unlike any other hero's underworld journey, full of grief and regret and a pyrrhic victory, at best.
The trees, that were a row of whistles for the wind, grew small out of the bright grass.
Call me petty, but little gems like this one from "Angele au Couvent" are what make Mary Butts' stories "sing," despite their sometimes choppy presentation. Like diamonds against a foil of black construction paper. There is a certain charm there that I must admit I like.
"Angele au Couvent" - what to make of this? A young girl in school, perhaps studying to be a nun (?) comes to the realization that she will never find happiness there, but only in literature. And yet, the story ends with a beginning that does not hold much hope for a "literary" future, but rather the edge of a life storm where she will be tossed about to and fro by the ravages of society. Or perhaps it is not?
"In the Street" is a short monologue by . . . who knows? A madwoman? A spurned lover? A cast off whore? All of these things, perhaps, or none of them. This is a woman that Beckett would have heard in his mental echo chambers, a "lost one," a vagrant or, perhaps, a mad princess. It is so hard to tell. And by hard to tell, I mean "telling". She is all of these and less and more.
Is "The Golden Bough" a retelling of the Fisher King set in 1920s London? Difficult to say, though there is the self-sacrifice. But here, at least two of the characters are self-admittedly mad, having been institutionalized at one point. And yet, one questions who here is sane and who is not? Perhaps the cast of unreliable characters will never allow the mystery to be unraveled. Could it ever be? Should it?
What happened "In the South"? Something very old, ancient, even. Something undying, like eternity, like love. And what is signified by the terms "brother" and "sister"? Something deeper and more meaningful than shared parentage, something unknowable and absolutely unbreakable.
Young Mary finds that being overshadowed by the Holy Ghost and seeing an angel is . . . complicated and wrought with danger in "Maddona of the Magnificat".
"Widdershins" is an unravelling labyrinth of social entanglement. Dick Tressider discovers that no instantaneous magic can give him the standing he desires and, in fact, he might never attain the status and place he desires. At least this is how I interpret this choppy narrative, but of flotsam swirling in an undoing.
"The Dinner Party" is a social labyrinth that we are taken through from the view of a wanderer therein. At the center lies the Minotaur, and it is every bit as horrifying as that terrible beast. Perhaps even more so for the facade of "culture" around it. An outstanding expose of manners and social pressure. Devastating, in the end.
I had to reread "Brightness Falls" to fully grasp it (though it is not "graspable" and intentionally not so). On the second read, I realized how absolutely masterful the story is. My favorite up to this point. Is it about jealousy and winsomeness, or witchcraft and liminal dimensions, or hypnotism and a Freudian obstacle course? I take the fantastical view myself, with an acknowledgement of the humor veined throughout.
What happens to old, perverse Greek heroes when they seemingly retire from . . . hero-ing? "The Later Life of Theseus, King of Athens" sheds some light - and some darkness - on those golden years. Just remember that, as the economists say, "debt never sleeps". And it will be repaid. It will.
A bit of a dark comedy of manners does not allow one to simply laugh off the sinister story "In Bloomsbury," about a staid aristocratic family and their beastly (their word, I think) cousins from South Africa. It's a disturbing commentary about racism, colonialism, and the upper-class sense of superiority. And yet, here Butts' dexterity with language is clearly apparent. She describes the dawning realization of murder - fratricide and matricide, no less - in beautiful terms:
"Essential daylight, colourless and clean" filled the room. The fire sulked. The hour was unpropitious for the turn of the event. Besides, what were we to do? Julian went on: "I made an under-statement. They spoke of their victims in the plural: referred to "them." The woman, I suppose, their stepmother." Situations which sink in. All their little peculiarities which had hitherto delighted us, reseen in this light. Revision at dawn. Of murder; of blood on black ivory skins. Polished boxwood and scarlet; two bodies who would stay dead.
"Friendship's Garland" seems to be about transitions, from old age to young, from human sociality, with all its pretense and stresses, to the seclusion of nature and the accompanying opportunity to see oneself in their purest form.
"Green" may be a story about a newly-married couple and the interpolation of an old "friend" of the husband who may or may not have been a lover in the midst of what may or may not be a love triangle in which the husband's mother (also admired of the husband's may or may not have been ex- or maybe not-ex-lover) may or may not have interfered in said maybe-but-maybe-not affair. It's all so platonic and careful.
I got a strong du Maurier vibe from "The House Party," with echoes of Trilby throughout: a group of decadent friends, all of whom might or might not be gay, who negotiate the intricacies of social standing and sociality, all with a sinister background character (in this case, The Pimp) who inadvertently reveals things about oneself to oneself. One of the stronger stories in the first half of the book.
"Look Homeward, Angel" is a somber piece that shows a restraint absent from earlier stories. Perhaps it is this sense of restraint that makes it so emotionally affecting. There's a certain resigned sadness here, in the liminal space between memorial and grief. This is one of Butts' later stories and it's maturity shows. It's the most beautiful story in the volume so far, absent of hyperbole and all the better for it.
"The Guest" is about, well, the guest . . . to a husband and wife and a "friend" of vague intentions. Vague enough that the guest himself takes umbrage with the whole affair (or is there really an affair)? All is not as it seems, except for the excellent writing. The stream of consciousness bits are portrayed parenthetically, which makes for much easier reading comprehension.
A fictionalized account of the true story (!) of the young Julius Ceasar being kidnapped by pirates whom he later came back to crucify, "A Roman Speaks" presents the general on the cusp of assuming dictatorial power. Here Caesar presents his story of capture, life among the pirates, ransom, and his promised crucifixion of his captors (who thought it was a joke until it happened). An interesting insight into the man.
Friends meet friends and become enemies in "The Warning," a cautionary tale (telegraphed by the title). Sometimes it's best to keep one's associates siloed away from each other. We've all had this experience, but never so eloquently.
Mary Butts' work demands your attention. In some tales, every word counts. "Mappa Mundi" is a truly weird tale that requires your focus as a reader. The diligent reader is well-rewarded here. I had to go back and reread several sections twice, but once I got my focus and the brain grasped what was happening - or what might have happened - a door opened into a labyrinth . . .
"A Lover"? A lie. A deceit that makes a mockery of love, even of friendship. Dissimulation cracks its head open against The Truth, and one lover must simply walk away. This seems to be a theme in many of the stories in this collection. Deceit couched in the most beautiful of words, but what are words, other than masks? Layer upon layer of fiction. All of it false, yet speaking truth.
I have not fallen in love and had my heart broken in the city of Paris after finding that the object of my devotion had been thoroughly corrupted by an evil sorceress and her coterie of cruel followers; not until I had read "From Altar to Chimney-piece". This story will stick in my brain for a long, long time. The ambiguity of supernatural power next to social corruption is delicious and wretched. Butts is a master.
Butts channels M.R. James in "With and Without Buttons," and the story is James-worthy, but with a hint of dark comedy throughout. A delightful, creepy story, with Butts' trademark turns of phrase scattered here and there . . . like stray gloves . . .
"After the Funeral" pulls off a triple-feat by putting the focus on a dead woman after her funeral, damning the shallowness of sociality, and showing a myth, albeit a private one, in the making. It is the echoes of the tale, between the lines, outside of the actual words, which interest me the most; that life beyond the veil, or that death. One wants to walk past the foreground and find the underpinnings.
Chaos reigns in "The House" as two pairs of renters sublet while on vacation. In the meantime, a new landlord purchases the property. Not-quite Jeeves and Wooster funny, nor Howard's End dramatic, Butt's story is . . . alright. With a touch of understated flair. Very English, one could say. Everything's alright. "Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way . . .".
A young, self-loathing American overseas practices cynicism with great elan. As stated earlier, I would love to read an entire novel about the main character in "Honey, Get Your Gun " a miscreant antihero that Nick Cave would be pleased to celebrate in one of his darker songs. It's a gloriously dark rumination and one of the more compelling characterizations I've ever read in this short of a piece of fiction. Depressing; oustanding!
There are bushels of bitter melancholy for such a small piece as "In the House". Poverty, death, unfulfilled promises, the breaking of familial trust, and decay are all suffused throughout. A poignant piece, but very depressing if you dwell on it too long. Sadness incarnate.
"Lettres Imaginaires" is a one-sided correspondence from a spurned woman who may or may not be a goddess to a man who may or may not be a god. Butts captures the sense of loss and the yearning for the repair of a broken heart one encounters when one is essentially abandoned. The narrator here, though, is smarter by miles than I was as a young man who encountered similar circumstances.
"A Vision" is simply that, a hallucinatory terrain trodden by mice, macaws, and angels, with a stark lesson in the futility of taking on the essence of God (even successfully - no, especially successfully). Assuming the character of God might incur the greatest flaws of all. Perfection is not all it's cracked up to be.
Scrying is the preferred method in "Magic," a purely meditative piece on the ascent into light, the descent into darkness. This could bear several readings, which is no small task for such a small story.
"Change" is actually about the lingering after-effects of change, specifically the ironies of being disinherited by one's wealthy family and living a life of poverty and shame - which has it's own richness and pride . . . of a sort.
The next tale is less about "A Magical Experiment" than it is such. Written in the 1920s in France, you can guess where the strong surrealism came from. It's largely nonsensical, but at certain moments it is startling. Probably the story most influenced by Crowley, though it would be easier to analyze if it was clear who was who. I need more context to understand this experiment.
"The Master's Last Dancing" is a bacchanalian riot of dance and violence and the shedding of all social graces. I can imagine the room full of flappers and gents in a Berlin jazz club, though this dance took place decades after that, another place, another time. Some things are timeless? A shocking, sad, story that asks, in the end, if it is actually funny or not?
"Fumerie" contends for my favorite piece in this volume. It's a decadent how-to guide, told in demonstrative vignettes and sometimes outright instruction, on the world of the opium smoker. I smoked opium twice, and it's a good thing I couldn't get my hands on more, because I really, REALLY liked it. This sometimes tongue-in-cheek piece of realism presents the sociality of the pipe with all its quirks. Brilliant.
The final untitled story is slight, but underscores the recurring theme of expatriate Americans in Paris, their brashness and clash of ideas or style with the locals. I suppose this story needs to be here for the volume to be The Complete Stories, but Butts has done this theme much more ably in other stories.
Strongly recommended!!!
September 7, 2015
"Like him I sat, my face lifted towards the quarter which is the womb of Paris, where her young still go and her secret poor. Down the street where the broken bits of Julian's baths lie about, which he built when the legions occupied the little city of the Parisii called Lutetia. Stones cluttering the grass railed off from the pavement, round the house full of symbols of the real story, the Cluny Museum."
"He left his car at the hill garage and ran down the terraced stairs of the small town, past gay, plaster houses roofed with round tiles, along slots of cooled, highly seasoned air; a ribbon of liquid sky on top; and at the end of each stair a patch of still water, divided by masts, the basin of the little, prehistoric port, till he reached the hotel on the quay."
"Under Vincent's wing, a man could stand up a bit. Vincent was English, tender, serious, older than he was. Vincent wanted him to come. Was no doubt cajoling, hypnotizing certain objections. Objections that were always made about him, especially by his own countrymen, the Americans who made a cult of Europe, a cult and a career, not quite perfect in their transplanting and conscious of it. "
- From "The House Party"
"This happened in the kind of house people live in who used not to live in that kind of house, who were taught to have very distinct opinions about the kind of people who lived in them. Yet, now that they have gone to live in them, they are rather different than when the other sort of person lived there."
- From "The Warning"
"For once they have taken one step across the line of protection, the belt of urban needs and values each of them carry strapped tight about them, they will find themselves in a world as tricky and uncertain, as full of strangeness, as any wood near Athens. No friendly greenwood, fixed by poets; no wise gnome tapped mountain; no gracious sea. The dragon-green, the luminous, the dark, serpent-haunted. Will they face it? When the Sirens are back at their business, sisters of the Harpies, the Snatchers? When the tripper-steamer – her bows to the sun – turns into the boat called Millions-of-Years?
Quiet in the woods. They can be very quiet when a wind from nowhere lifts in the tree-tops and through the pine-needles clashing the noise of a harp runs down the trunks into the earth. And no birds sing."
- From "Warning to Hikers" (an essay not in this collection)
Mary Butts is odd, uncanny. She was an outsider, a modernist who rejected all of the literary movements of her peers. She rejected the modern, the urban. She was isolated and, I think, clinically depressed. She became addicted to opium to the extent that she could write proudly in her diary that she had cut down to "only" seven pipes a day.
She had a belief in "old nature", in a kind of animism and sense of the non-corporeal, could "see" the old gods in the old land. But not, thankfully, in the sort of new age, fairies-and-goblins way, but in a dark and troubling awareness of something Other in Nature, something malevolent and powerful.
Personally I would explain this sort of sensation as a combination of genetics (we are, after all, basically still frightened cave dwellers) and a need to transfer the more problematic aspects of ones unconscious onto something outside of oneself.
This does not, however, do anything to negate the power of her writing.
Her prose is strange, unsettled and unsettling. This is a rare thing, I think. Some of these stories work better than others, but that is the benefit of a collection like this, you can always skip onto the next one...
August 10, 2021
Nothing here makes any direct mention of Aleister Crowley, but the nose that is properly tuned will easily catch a whiff of his influence throughout these stories. Butts studied with him directly at the "Abbey of Thelema" in Cifalù, Sicily in 1921, and had been a student of his since at least 1912, to the point that she was credited as a co-author of his magnum opus, Magick: Liber Aba: Book 4. That influence, predating the earliest of the stories herein, is pervasive, though by no means universal nor overwhelming. This is not Thelema Stories by any stretch.
No, as it happens, she is a far better writer than that. I enjoyed this much more than I expected to. Her modernist prose is quite evocative, if a bit challenging in its continental flair and Edwardian milieu for a 21st-century American. (Which is to say, have a dictionary ready, and be prepared to do some searching and translating.) Forget not that she was influenced by Pound and Jean Cocteau as well as by magick and Crowley, perhaps more so.
Therefore, don't come here looking for lessons in Thelema so much, perhaps, as an object lesson on how the influence of Thelema might lead one to realize their art in their own unique way. And if you happen to like Modernist short stories with period character studies and deep references to mythology, so much the better.
•POSTED 2018-11-04
•EDITED 2021-08-10 for typos
No, as it happens, she is a far better writer than that. I enjoyed this much more than I expected to. Her modernist prose is quite evocative, if a bit challenging in its continental flair and Edwardian milieu for a 21st-century American. (Which is to say, have a dictionary ready, and be prepared to do some searching and translating.) Forget not that she was influenced by Pound and Jean Cocteau as well as by magick and Crowley, perhaps more so.
Therefore, don't come here looking for lessons in Thelema so much, perhaps, as an object lesson on how the influence of Thelema might lead one to realize their art in their own unique way. And if you happen to like Modernist short stories with period character studies and deep references to mythology, so much the better.
•POSTED 2018-11-04
•EDITED 2021-08-10 for typos
January 29, 2026
SPOILER ALERT: This is vomit of ideas that I had after the book! I loved it and had a lot on my mind in the end!
I read Speed the Plough for class at university and was irrecoverably moved by the experience of the unnamed man. I'm not sure how well I contextualised the narrative, but from what I stole I found it beautiful.
It was obsessive, perverse and gross and infatuating. A beautiful perspective into the mind idk. How when we idealise women and force perfection onto them, we strip them of their humanity.
Its beautiful portrayal of how images of women are overly romanticised then ultimately dehumanised.
Through a flowery world of wealth. Language that is romantic, French and latinate, accompanied by imagery that is soft and seemingly slow. This offers a contrast to the protagonist's harsh reality; the aftermath of WW1. The Kirchner girls, the image of a woman—the idea of wealth and beauty—becomes an escape and a fantasy. Creating an escape that appears similar to a kingdom with princesses and knights.
What makes the women in the text human, palpable and vivid, is what turns him away. Maybe due to the war, and the lived experience of seeing bodies bend and break, flesh turn away from bone and lose its livelihood, growing stale and growing cold.
And so, women become doll-like. Unbreakable and reliable. Like a toy in childhood. Whilst in Pink Flannel there is a craving for the flesh and comfort that is, within a Freudian guise, craving the womanly figure and motherly warmth and sexual comfort, in this tale, the protagonist wants something more infantile, flowery, childlike and innocent.
This can be seen taken further as he interacts with the “COWS” which are likened to the palpable female body.
He is in a constant state of dreaming that constantly desires to undress the female body, to see the lace beneath and pale of skin. Desire that is almost perverse but tamed within the obsession and consumption of fabrics, French aristocracy etc.
This speaks to contemporary audiences too as “women” continue to brand an image of male desire and comfort to male loneliness and isolation and loss. The “AI” female companion, that can be clothed and unclothed, dressed in luxury and undressed at will. The female body exists as a consistent escape for male fantasy and desire. This is something that appears in games, whose target audiences are largely male, like, to name one, Cortana in Halo. Themes appear also in Blade Runner 2049, the American epic neo-noir fiction film by Denis Villeneuve of ‘K’, an officer marching through chaos. And his girlfriend, the hologram. This sort of behaviour, female comfort at the cost of their humanity, is made most evidently clear in the scene “You don’t like real girls do you?” The impossible beauty standards for women to live up to; they become detached from the real body.
I love the portrayal of escapism and find this beautiful :)
I read Speed the Plough for class at university and was irrecoverably moved by the experience of the unnamed man. I'm not sure how well I contextualised the narrative, but from what I stole I found it beautiful.
It was obsessive, perverse and gross and infatuating. A beautiful perspective into the mind idk. How when we idealise women and force perfection onto them, we strip them of their humanity.
Its beautiful portrayal of how images of women are overly romanticised then ultimately dehumanised.
Through a flowery world of wealth. Language that is romantic, French and latinate, accompanied by imagery that is soft and seemingly slow. This offers a contrast to the protagonist's harsh reality; the aftermath of WW1. The Kirchner girls, the image of a woman—the idea of wealth and beauty—becomes an escape and a fantasy. Creating an escape that appears similar to a kingdom with princesses and knights.
What makes the women in the text human, palpable and vivid, is what turns him away. Maybe due to the war, and the lived experience of seeing bodies bend and break, flesh turn away from bone and lose its livelihood, growing stale and growing cold.
And so, women become doll-like. Unbreakable and reliable. Like a toy in childhood. Whilst in Pink Flannel there is a craving for the flesh and comfort that is, within a Freudian guise, craving the womanly figure and motherly warmth and sexual comfort, in this tale, the protagonist wants something more infantile, flowery, childlike and innocent.
This can be seen taken further as he interacts with the “COWS” which are likened to the palpable female body.
He is in a constant state of dreaming that constantly desires to undress the female body, to see the lace beneath and pale of skin. Desire that is almost perverse but tamed within the obsession and consumption of fabrics, French aristocracy etc.
This speaks to contemporary audiences too as “women” continue to brand an image of male desire and comfort to male loneliness and isolation and loss. The “AI” female companion, that can be clothed and unclothed, dressed in luxury and undressed at will. The female body exists as a consistent escape for male fantasy and desire. This is something that appears in games, whose target audiences are largely male, like, to name one, Cortana in Halo. Themes appear also in Blade Runner 2049, the American epic neo-noir fiction film by Denis Villeneuve of ‘K’, an officer marching through chaos. And his girlfriend, the hologram. This sort of behaviour, female comfort at the cost of their humanity, is made most evidently clear in the scene “You don’t like real girls do you?” The impossible beauty standards for women to live up to; they become detached from the real body.
I love the portrayal of escapism and find this beautiful :)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 12, 2024
Mary Butts was born in 1890 and died in 1937. During that period she wrote a collection of poetic stories that were sometimes stream-of-consciousness word dumps hinting at such sordid subjects as infidelity, the worship of strange gods, incest, weird happenings, and secret cities within cities.
Much of it is plotless and appears pretentious because she will casually drop in French and Latin phrases. However, born in England and having lived in Paris, French phrases were likely a common part of her vocabulary and so perhaps it was natural to include these in her writings. The Latin, however, might be a bit of a stretch to excuse in this way.
The stories take on some semblance of plot in her middle period, and though she never really tells a complete story there are a trio of satisfying gems in here, namely, Mappa Mundi, A Lover, and From Altar to Chimney-Piece. I also found a couple of her early pieces intriguing. These stories are poetic prose, layered in mystery, and profundities never quite uncovered.
They are, however, buried treasure because a thorough reader will have to dig through a lot of lesser stories to reach the gold at the center of the book.
Much of it is plotless and appears pretentious because she will casually drop in French and Latin phrases. However, born in England and having lived in Paris, French phrases were likely a common part of her vocabulary and so perhaps it was natural to include these in her writings. The Latin, however, might be a bit of a stretch to excuse in this way.
The stories take on some semblance of plot in her middle period, and though she never really tells a complete story there are a trio of satisfying gems in here, namely, Mappa Mundi, A Lover, and From Altar to Chimney-Piece. I also found a couple of her early pieces intriguing. These stories are poetic prose, layered in mystery, and profundities never quite uncovered.
They are, however, buried treasure because a thorough reader will have to dig through a lot of lesser stories to reach the gold at the center of the book.
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