Wolf Solent: A Novel

Wessex #1

by John Cowper Powys

When it was first published in 1929, John Cowper Powys's rapturous novel of eros and ideas was compared with works by Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, and D.H. Lawrence. Since then it has won the admiration of writers from Henry Miller to Iris Murdoch. Wolf Solent remains wholly unrivaled in its deft and risky balance of mysticism and social comedy, ecstatic contemplation of nature and unblinking observation of human folly and desire.Forsaking London for Ramsgard, a village in Dorsetshire, Wolf Solent discovers a world of pagan splendor and medieval insularity, riddled by ancient scandals and resentments. And there this poetic young man meets two women—the sensuous beauty Gerda and the ethereal gamine Christie—who will become the sharers of his body and soul. Audacious, extravagant, and gloriously strange, Wolf Solent is a twentieth-century masterpiece.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, British Literature, Historical Fiction, Literature, 20th Century, Novels

966 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

Powys was born in Shirley, Derbyshire, where his father was vicar. His mother was descended from the poet William Cowper, hence his middle name. His two younger brothers, Llewelyn Powys and Theodore Francis Powys, also became well-known writers. Other brothers and sisters also became prominent in the arts.

John studied at Sherborne School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and became a teacher and lecturer; as lecturer, he worked first in England, then in continental Europe and finally in the USA, where he lived in the years 1904-1934. While in the United States, his work was championed by author Theodore Dreiser. He engaged in public debate with Bertrand Russell and the philosopher and historian Will Durant: he was called for the defence in the first obscenity trial for the James Joyce novel, Ulysses, and was mentioned with approval in the autobiography of US feminist and anarchist, Emma Goldman.

He made his name as a poet and essayist, moving on to produce a series of acclaimed novels distinguished by their uniquely detailed and intensely sensual recreation of time, place and character. They also describe heightened states of awareness resulting from mystic revelation, or from the experience of extreme pleasure or pain. The best known of these distinctive novels are A Glastonbury Romance and Wolf Solent. He also wrote some works of philosophy and literary criticism, including a pioneering tribute to Dorothy Richardson.

Having returned to the UK, he lived in England for a brief time, then moved to Corwen in Wales, where he wrote historical romances (including two set in Wales) and magical fantasies. He later moved to Blaenau Ffestiniog, where he remained until his death in 1963.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wolf Solent is a story of an idealist in the material world… He tries to escape it in his reverie and he tries to liberate himself running from mechanical civilization.

In the dusty, sunlit space of that small tobacco-stained carriage he seemed to see, floating and helpless, an image of the whole round earth! And he saw it bleeding and victimized, like a smooth-bellied, vivisected frog. He saw it scooped and gouged and scraped and harrowed. He saw it hawked at out of the humming air. He saw it netted in a quivering entanglement of vibrations, heaving and shuddering under the weight of iron and stone.

And with the subtle and intelligent irony John Cowper Powys presents us with the modern version of the Judgement of Paris myth. There in the country, in the lap of nature, Wolf Solent feels as if he was placed in the Garden of the Hesperides and similar to Paris he must choose between three women: his possessive mother – a symbol of power, lovely Gerda – a symbol of beauty, and sagacious Christie – a symbol of wisdom. And, of course, the hero chooses beauty…

Over this cold surface they moved hand in hand, between the unfallen mist of rain in the sky and the diffused mist of rain in the grass, until the man began to feel that they two were left alone alive, of all the people of the earth – that they two, careless of past and future, protected from the very ghosts of the dead by these tutelary vapours, were moving forward, themselves like ghosts, to some vague imponderable sanctuary where none could disturb or trouble them!

But he is far from sure in his choice so the inner struggle commences soon, making his ideals and illusions crack at the seams…

“The stream of life is made of little things,” he said to himself. “To forget the disgusting ones and fill yourself with the lovely ones… that’s the secret. What a fool I was to try and make my soul into a round, hard crystal! It’s a lake… that’s what it is… with a stream of shadows drifting over it like so many leaves!”

Our life is like a long road we walk and at every crossroad, we must make a choice…

[Fionnuala]

Monday, October 26th.
Thoughts at page 360
I should have set down my impressions of this very long and intense book earlier because I've already lost a bunch of them on the way to page 360, which is the halfway point, so now I'm going to try to record what I remember. Main character Wolf Solent's own thoughts on life and nature are a big part of the narrative but there is a curious plot too which is growing more complicated as the pages turn. I find myself swinging wildly between preferring the sections where Wolf's interior world dominates and dismissing the plot as melodramatic, to getting completely absorbed in the plot and becoming impatient with Wolf's decisions and indecisions, plus his never-ending series of epiphany moments.
But even while I'm veering between those two axes, I'm getting more and more caught up in the triangular landscape that is the backdrop to the plot. There are three main locations, and it seems to me that each has a further key site within itself. There's the Dorset town of Ramsgard where the key site is the Abbey Cathedral with its lofty fan tracery ceiling which induces a state of heightened consciousness in Wolf whenever he visits it. The second main location is the nearby town of Blacksod with the key site being the hill called Poll's Camp that dominates it and which Wolf experiences as being almost animate. Then there's the village of King's Barton, the third point of the triangle as it were, where the key site is a lake of dark water known as Lenty Pond which fascinates Wolf in a strange way. From time to time, the narrative is interrupted by a reference to a further location, Waterloo Station in London, as if there were an invisible thread that links it to the other main locations.
To add to the intricacy of the narrative landscape pattern that's emerging, there is another element to be taken into account: the malicious, spider-like Squire of King's Barton who owns Lenty Pond and employs Wolf Solent as a secretary. The Squire is composing a history of the region. His project is not a regular history but a scandalous one, a catalogue of all the shocking and even malignant episodes that occurred over the centuries. Meanwhile there are heavy hints of evil doings in the present...

Wednesday, October 28th
page 404
I've had the thought that my wildly swinging response to this book mirrors the swing between good and evil. It also mirrors Wolf's wild swings between supporting his mother's choices in life (sometimes seen as positive, sometimes negative) and supporting his dead father's choices (which are also seen as both positive and negative). Wolf is constantly feeling the need to ally himself completely with one of his parents to the exclusion of the other and vice versa. In fact his behavior is full of such contradictory impulses. He loves two very different women in two very different ways and suffers from the coexistence inside himself of these two extremes of feeling. At one point he describes them as one the horizon, the other the sold ground beneath him. His mood makes extreme swings too—you might say it swings as frequently as his walking stick. I mention the walking stick because there is hardly a page where it doesn't appear. Quite a bit of the narrative happens outdoors as Wolf walks between the three main locations. The stick is like a barometer of his moods. When his mood is extatic, the tip of the stick swings high. When his mood is bleak, the tip is invariably poking at some debris on the ground beneath him, whether a piece of rubbish stuck in the mud of a laneway or a dead plant beside his father's grave..

Saturday, October 31st
P456
Moments as perfect as this required death as their inevitable counter poise
Death is very present in this book. Death and cemeteries. I talked about key sites earlier. It's now clear that the cemetery in Ramsgard is also a key site, as is the cemetary in King's Barton in which some very eerie scenes take place involving the possible digging up of a dead body (I'm noting today's date as I write this). There's no cemetary in the third key location, Blacksod, though there is a funeral-monument maker's house there which has certain deathly significance. However there's even more deathly significance in the bookshop in Blacksod where many scenes take place. The daughter of the bookshop owner is described as a waif-like otherworldly creature and I worry that she's destined for death before the end of the narrative...

Tuesday, November 3rd.
Something in the Dorset air had the power to elongate the very substance of time.
Well, I've finally finished reading this book which I feel I've been immersed in for what seems like an entire year! Incidentally, the book narrates exactly one year in Wolf Solent's life, finishing on the anniversary of the day it began, the day Wolf first arrived in the town of Ramsgard from London. There's a certain sense that the entire book is a kind of curve of recurrence with incidents from early sections being mirrored in later sections, and Wolf constantly walking the paths he's walked before. The idea of a curve is also present in the way the happenings constantly revolve between the three main locations, and also circle the key sites within those locations.
And so I seem to have circled 360 degrees back to the point with which I began this review back on October 26th: the landscape of the narrative and the narrative landscape, and the key places and key plot elements that link them both together.
I'm not likely to forget this book for a long long time.

[Mariel · Rating 5 out of 5]

'It's absurd to talk of souls being inside things! They're always on the outside! They're the glamour of things... the magic... the bloom... the breath. They're the intention of things!'

Sadness sweeter than happiness... Wolf Solent is my sentient book. Philosophy with a blindfolded hand over the heart and sole mate floating in the brain jell-O ooze.


Wolf has a secret life, a reason to abide himself. He calls it 'mythology', an open envisioned as hard crystals in his gut, appearing in mind as a path, recognized in edges. There's a time he goes into a nighttime church and the smell of the mildew is a second darkness within the darkness. This is after he can no longer be made so happy by his mysterious world. If there were a secret door and he leaned on the wall and went somewhere else this way that's how I would think his eyes must look when he does it. After he has "lost it" this stuff like the "second darkness" was still killing me. Metaphors for the moon, similes for the dirt, poetry for nighttime, dreams for the day, a thesaurus rex to eat the mountains AND the mole-hills. I could live on leaves turning over to Wolf's interior where the rabbits would flee. I could live forever on when someone is dead to him, tombstoned hardness, and a moment later (if that) he robs his grave for their lives again within his eye. And it is all true. Selena Gault, the ugly face who sends her spirit into the slaughter-house fear with her beloved animals. She could never dance on graves but she would curse a committee of avian flesh to goosebump. Maybe the animals still feel alone but Wolf threads between them. I loved this alive like this, and when his cruelty to revenge his own miserly future visions on an innocent student transforms into the boy haunting his mirror visits with goodness. I don't care what he says, Wolf cannot help himself, dead 'mythology' or no. I think it was Christie Malakite who criticized him for this very trait I ached for (Wolf's mind is a two-way mirror reflecting inwards and they will all beat on it), but I also think she wouldn't be able to help her smile if she saw it. My mythology is my belief in this in others. I had this feeling when reading Wolf Solent that made me as happy as the sky made ecstatic Wolf. The blue scene is another dimension, a as long as it lasts proof (this book is magic. I saw it too). I could sense outside of Wolf's world where it would lap if someone else's mind was a beach. Before he knows it I suspect and it was this unfolding of their connected lives (maybe in my mythology their lives are origami paper folding into shapes of herons, rocks, bookshops), the blood under the skin, that made me feel alive. I think of a heart from the sad face to float on Wolf's pond like an avenging ghost on his peace of mind. To his father's grave turning pick me and his mother's knowing glint in her eye going do you really know anything? To the suicidal Redfern he replaces as secretary (the pin fall inside Wolf when the does anyone have a right to be happy Jason speaks spells of ghosts and questions and pity for Redfern. When he is afraid he is next, when the mind-building digs graves. Wolf's mind is more haunted than the oldest battlements) to pen the bawdy gloatings of the egging squire Mr. Urquhart... The good and evil, the breath he takes from their folding symbols, to lean on, the belief. His secret world cannot survive without them and he cannot see it, he believes (and this breaks my heart) if he cannot build up as a shark has to swim his "life-illusion". And I know exactly how he feels. The underneath the scars of his landscape that made him glory, or that sent him robbed. I lived in the undertow. The scars in the faces that drowned his dreams, the world turned upside down and smiles. Oh, man.

Comparisons to other authors and books are made a lot. My book jacket is full of Proust and Tolstoy and Hardy. Eddie Watkins' 'cosmic Thomas Hardy' was downright inspired. I had had in mind if Julien Gracq didn't make me feel buried alive. When the luminous skin holds whispers and secrets the kind the male observer doesn't want to know what he hopes for because that might be the same as losing interest once he's banged her. It's the kind of outside beauty that I cannot imagine because it has never moved me. I want to die a bit after reading so much about the enlightened skin. I want to take a mallet to their face, or my own, and then maybe a flight will be possible. John Cowper Powys would never do that to me. The loveliest Gerda he had ever seen, the ground beneath his feet he will think, the stone-cutter's daughter, or a little girl wanting to make up a nice house. They say her passivity launches war ships and she is not worried about. I don't know what she was thinking but I cannot stop thinking about when she tells Wolf not to hurry home. She is happiest sitting in the window, waiting for his return. The blackbird whistle she does, an unhappiness sweeter than happiness, is her own mythology. A magic of her own. If a haunted forest, beauty suggestive of forgotten dreams is unseen does that mean it never happened. A bird call unanswered. Did it have to be heard by Wolf, her beauty seen, to have been there. I had this feeling that Gerda would have dreamed somewhere else in her otherly song without him to hear as long as she believed that there had been other birds. All of the times Gerda does her blackbird song made me go oh god oh god oh god in a nameless appeal to something. I couldn't breathe. Wolf's mother tells him he never understood that everyone is lonely. I understand that and I don't always remember it when I feel alone. This blackbird whistle (and more from this book I can write about. If we could sit together and talk in fragments and silences)... This book... It's more than understanding that people are lonely. It's coming up to where it ends and almost touching. It was perfect. I could see the Gerda from before he ever met her, the little girl pushing the water-rats to watch them swim, life or death tears in childhood games. I think I loved it best of all that Wolf kept looking back to his life before he was in it. I wanted to shake him a bit that he saw his own shadow too much on the spirit surface of everyone. It was also heartbreaking because it would have happened that life is crushingly hardly to keep alive whatever it is you have to do to keep going. And absolutely everyone in Wolf Solent has that and I loved sensing what it was in them so much. So much. I think I loved doing that more than anything. It was like not feeling alone.

When Wolf is giving up the moment for a hope, off with his head, his true-love Christie exists for me. It isn't lost on me that she exists for me not unlike how Wolf does it. He will love how she sticks her head out of the window when her speech works out like your hands cannot type as fast as your thoughts. Your mind is Road Runner and your body is Wile Coyote. Or the other way around. Someone is betraying. And he wants to hug her or she wants to hug herself. But I see another Christie, and I think it is before she can see it. Before he can see his two steps back and one step forward life of the love affair only sighed. When she still believes her father and her sister had a tragic love affair, pines for their daughter Olwen who lives in the same town. I could hear another heartbeat, the quickened one on the stair on the way to her room, and the pace to little Olwen. Everyone is alone, and all for his own white beard. It was the space between them, of time to wonder about the missing sister and what more she could have had to life, that stopped my mental hand outside of good or evil. The outside time where the circles kept it going made that for me. When Wolf is making himself too tired to die, the feather Dumbo needed to fly disappearing from his horizon, I could still believe it. I know how he feels because I still get these "trips" in my mind too. You still have it, you know you do. But there's believing you cost Gerda her blackbird song from having to live with you. The mind tricks one has to play on oneself. It's awful. I hate it. Somewhere there's a weight and it is too... to fly. You can't do it everyday and when you can't do it... But oh god oh god oh god was what it looked like when it was happening so much more than my thing there (where is Christie's window to stick my head out of). You didn't sell your soul. I know he didn't sell his soul. Somehow the flying still feels like you are risking going over where the dark land meets the dark sea and you won't be able to know which is landing. I can't seem to write outside of the loss.... The leaves floating on the mythological pond turned over and sunk to the bottom. He lies there, ghostly and underwater, doesn't know he can breathe.

'I've learnt one thing to-night,' he thought, as he crossed the room and felt about in the darkness for the handle of the door. 'I've learnt that one can't always get help by sinking into one's own soul. It's sometimes necessary to escape from oneself altogether.
That's Wolf Solent for me. I don't know how he did the oh god oh god oh god but it was floating from Wolf's head to the pond to the walls of the bookshop to laughing nightmare faces to keep him up at night to the sweet body to keep him up at night to what everyone else always wanted. Philosophy for how to keep your eyes open and the spirit to hold and oh god the no name for it but the blackbird call. I felt like I could hear it, so long as it lasted.

P.s. I should probably mention that Wolf Solent is really just freaking enjoyable to read. I was happy. I just don't feel as happy when I try to talk about it because I don't ever know how to go Marieling anymore. But I did, I did, I did.

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

A balance of introspection and dialogue. Close third person narration with occasional astral projection. Powys' forays into mystical imagery got him labeled the forefather of magical realism, which is a label also applied to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Instead I liken reading this book to the best parts of D. H. Lawrence, Hardy, and Walter Scott, where their observation is so precise, so often, that it forces your mind into new territory. It is a book full of human desires, aspiring to be more than human.

Wolf's adventures in love and through countrysides are as much cerebral excursions as traditional ones. He takes in breathtaking vistas, while penetrating into hidden layers he perceives all around him. These are signs of animism, the presence of the spirits - like gods of the woods, will-o-the-wisps, ghosts - these all have special meaning for the protagonist. Wolf is destined to carry a profound awareness of his surroundings, an acute sensitivity which stems from the wild and overflows into his interactions with other people. He contemplates fate, beauty, and the hidden potential for humans to feel their surroundings. In the traditional of Lawrence, his protagonist is a sensualist of sorts, who does not ask 'what is real?' but rather, 'what is more real? Dream or waking life?'

We are treated to a delightful series of descriptions between the droll Tolstoyan romantic intrigues comprising the novel's conflicts. Flowers, stars and skies, forests, and great country houses that would make Turgenev and Wordsworth salivate are bandied about with abandon. He hovers over a tenuous line with his use of the English language, somewhere between genius and insanity. As a novel, it is at once profound and overly concerned with its own importance. Much like Anna Karenina and other nonetheless fascinating, lengthy novels, there is an obsession with the marital relationship and the politics of the household, which was a residing theme of English literature in the early 1900s when Wolf Solent appeared, like an uninvited distant relative houseguest, on the literary scene.

One might pick out hints of misogyny and other odd asides, where Powys falls prey to revealing that his main character is actually a thinly veiled alter ego - a foible he repeats, according to what I've read, in other novels. The characterization of Wolf is almost obsessive, as is Wolf's examination of the side characters, which I thought paled in comparison to him, the main event.

"Beauty like that, he thought, as he looked at her, ought to endow its possessor with superhuman happiness, as in the old legends, when 'the sons of God saw the daughters of men.' There was a cruel irony in the fact that he of all men had been singled out to possess this beauty - he whose heart of hearts had been given to a different being!"

The above quote sums up one of the major concerns of the main character. A major theme in the novel is his conflicting relationships with 2 women. The women themselves are not given quite enough to do, perhaps, but their main appeal as characters comes from Powys' powerful ability to describe scenes and conjure atmosphere. As can also be seen from the above quote, he often repeats himself, but his prose has definite rhythm, and it is both magical and deceptive.

"And as he pondered on all this it struck him as strange that such rare loveliness should not protect her, like silver armour, against the shocks and outrages of life. Beauty as unusual as this was a high gift, like a poet's genius, and ought to have the power of protecting a girl's heart from the cruel inconstancies of love."

This quote comes directly after the previous one. Powys often reverberates with thoughts and concepts that Shakespeare once put into words, but unlike the Bard, the author here is not concerned with saving space, but rather, with delving into all the tributaries of meaning he has discovered by extracting these themes from great literature. Wolf and Powys in turn make constant reference to Hamlet, Lear, Othello, Dante, Homer and Walter Scott. Wolf is even editing an essay on the topic of Walter Scott within the narrative. There are also several poems, inserted haphazardly by an unmemorable side character, and the foreboding nature of Urquhart seems to take on cosmic significance in Wolf's mind. Trying to understand these characters, like trying to grasp Powys' prevailing intentions, is often difficult, but it is easy to get a sense of his appreciation for aesthetics and natural beauty, and of the interior beauty of human beings. He reaffirms life and the soul, and the importance of careful observation of the outside world as a way to interpret the storms of emotions our own hearts and minds summon to our attention, as a way to calm and enrich the threads of our lives, as meaningless and selfish as they sometimes turn out to be.

Judging the author simply by this book would not be fair. He was a prolific intellectual giant. Owen Glendower, A Glastonbury Romance, Porius, Weymouth Sands, Maiden Castle, and Three Fantasies, all of which I recently added to the primetime shelves in my home library, comprise 5000 pages of this introspective stuff. And he wrote innumerable other hefty, obscure tomes, equally enigmatic and alluring. To contemplate the sheer reading pleasure offered by the prospect, or should I say determined enterprise, of undertaking to come to a deep and full understanding of this author, makes other oeuvres - even ones as intimidating as Thomas Wolfe's - look like child's play.

In a way this is a masterpiece, but it is easy to see that it is not his most accomplished work. Most writers fail to reach the heights this work attains to, with the notable exceptions of Anna Karenina or the more highly developed of Dostoyevsky's novels. Yet in Powys, there is even more quiet brooding than in those Russian works.

Consciousness is the vehicle for plot. I don't think this was anything new by this time, but barring Proust, Powys helms this technique better than almost anyone. At times Wolf almost seems to dissolve the landscapes with his mind. He penetrates through the physical world, always questioning, always interpreting. Why is he so suspicious of existence? Perhaps because Powys does not want us to take it for granted. We are treated to new mental landscapes at every turn, superimposed by Wolf's nervous mind, upon the world he inhabits.

He wrestles with lust versus love as regards Gerda and Christie. His parents and employer are also fodder for his heart-rending discernments. He simply can't stop feeling the aura and power and significance of these ordinary people to the point where he might be considered an unreliable narrator.

"'This world is not made of bread and honey,' cried Wolf, the worm, to the skull of his father, 'nor the sweet flesh of girls. This world is made of clouds and of the shadows of clouds. It is made of mental landscapes, porous as air, where men and women are as trees walking, and as reeds shaken by the wind.'"

"To turn the world again into mist and vapour is easy and weak. To keep it alive, to keep it real, to hold it at arm's length, is the way of gods and demons."

These quotes are all from Chapter 15, which takes place mainly inside of Wolf's mind, like several of the best chapters.

I don't know enough about Tolkien to know if he encountered Powys or at least his writings - since they lived at approximately the same time, but I see some similarities in their regard for the grandeur of their settings. But no setting in the novel is as wondrous as Wolf's brain.

As enthusiastic as I am about most of this book, I can't say I recommend it to everyone. It lacks the accessibility of Don Quixote or other classics, and it seems sidelined to minor-curiosity status. It is a dense and complex work, challenging and richly rewarding to the reader, but it is unfortunately not uniformly good. Certain sections of dialogue go on at unexplainable length. After he has made his point Powys often feels the necessity to go on making it with tremendous strides and flamboyant strokes. Proust shared this proclivity, but one must forgive them both. It's so tedious being a genius, they would tell you. The universe, to them, is all the more incomprehensible, because they approach, in their facility, the keenest ability to discover its true breadth.

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've heard Powys compared to Dostoevsky, but I don't see it, even though Dostoevsky was one of Powys' favorite authors and inspirations (he even wrote a book-length study of him). I think he's more like a cosmic Hardy as filtered through proto-Jungian spectacles, with a side of fish.

I suppose the Dostoevsky parallels could stem from their mutual concerns for "soul" issues and for marginal obsessive characters, but Powys expresses himself much more through landscape and the natural world while Dostoevsky is much more purely human-based, expressing himself mainly through dialogue and the verbal ticks and body twitches of his characters.

This will probably go down as Powys' masterpiece, and is usually the first book of his that people read, and it is a great book and a great place to start, but his other novels are great too.

He was a powerful influence on Henry Miller, who actually attended some of his lectures (Powys worked as a touring lecturer on things philosophic and literary) in New York.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It seemed as though all the religions in the world were nothing but so many creaking and splashing barges, whereon the souls of men ferried themselves over those lakes of primal silence, disturbing the swaying water-plants that grew there and driving away shy water fowl."

Second reading of this. First was long ago and it did not go well. This second time through follows a reading of pretty much all of the rest of his work. It went much better.

This is his best known book, and the most commonly read. For what it is worth (not much) I think both A Glastonbury Romance and Porius are "masterpieces", while this is just damn good.

A little taste as follows:

Wolf, speaking to his father's skull in the ground beneath him, argues "There is no reality but what the mind fashions out of itself. There is nothing but a mirror opposite a mirror, and a round crystal opposite a round crystal, and a sky in water opposite water in a sky"

The response is:

“‘Ho! Ho! You worm of my folly,’ laughed the hollow skull. ‘I am alive still, though I am dead; and you are dead, though you’re alive. For life is beyond your mirrors and your waters. It’s at the bottom of your pond; it’s in the body of your sun; it’s in the dust of your star spaces; it’s in the eyes of weasels and the noses of rats and the pricks of nettles and the tongues of vipers and the spawn of frogs and the slime of snails. Life is in me still, you worm of my folly, and girls’ flesh is sweet for ever; and honey is sticky and tears are salt, and yellow-hammers’ eggs have mischievous crooked scrawls!"

And later

"My 'I am I' is no hard, small crystal inside me, but a cloudy, a vapour, a mist, a smoke hovering round my skull, hovering around my spine, my arms, my legs. That's what I am, a vegetable animal wrapped in a mental cloud, and with the will-power to project this cloud into the consciousness of others."

or

"It always gave Wolf a peculiar thrill thus to tighten his grip upon his stick, thus to wrap himself more closely in his faded overcoat. Objects of this kind played a queer part in his secret life-illusion. His stick was like a plough-handle, a ship's runner, a gun, a spade, a sword, a spear. His threadbare overcoat was like a medieval jerkin, like a monk's habit, like a classic toga! It gave him a primeval delight merely to move one foot in front of the other, merely to prod the ground with his stick, merely to feel the flapping of his coat about his knees, when this mood predominated. It always associated itself with his consciousness of the historic continuity---so incredibly charged with marvels of dreamy fancy---of human beings moving to and fro across the earth. It associated itself, too, with his deep, obstinate quarrel with modern inventions, with modern machinery...."

Whether or not JCP will work for you will depend in part on how much you can stomach this sort of thing.

[Barry Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

next time I'm going up the steps at Waterloo I'm keeping my eyes firmly shut.

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 3 out of 5]

And, though it was into the night that she now poured those liquid notes, the tone of their drawn-out music was a tone full of the peculiar feeling of one hour above all the hours of night and day. It was the tone of the hour just before dawn, the tone of that life which is not sound, but only withheld breath, the breath of cold buds not yet green, of earth-bound bulbs not yet loosed from their sheaths, the tone of the flight of swallows across chilly seas as yet far off from the warm, pebbled beaches towards which they are steering their way.

Wolf Solent is a man in his mid-thirties who has left London after losing his job as a teacher, and subsequently accepted a new temporary position as secretary to a squire in the Dorset countryside of England. His work will involve the writing of a book of local history based on the squire's research. Upon his arrival, Solent immediately becomes embroiled in the small town societal drama of the region, in part due to both his familial connections to the area and the murky circumstances surrounding the fate of his predecessor. As in any small towns, there are dark secrets buried beneath the surface and Solent is intent on dredging these up, no matter how sordid their nature. He also wastes no time in pursuing a young woman (or two), which leads to the staging of his own personal drama. When his mother arrives on the scene, all the major parts of this convoluted play have been cast.

Solent is a self-absorbed character, as is the protagonist of Weymouth Sands, the other novel of Powys that I've read. This self-absorption can run deep to the point of tedium, although it is also what provides an otherwise pointless story with its structure. Solent relies heavily on what he terms his 'mythology' or 'life-illusion', which is both a driving force behind his decision-making and an important source of solace in times of stress. It's also linked to his dualistic view of life. In his present circumstances Solent finds his 'mythology' to be threatened on multiple fronts (of his own making, I might add). The novel rotates on the axis of this 'mythology': what it means to him, how he uses it, its interplay with his dualistic thinking, and whether he will be able to preserve it and hence, his personal integrity. And it is how Solent ultimately chooses to respond to the common injustices he suffers, as well as the mental process of deciding on these choices, that contribute to the uniqueness of the story.

The power of nature to absolve and redeem the human soul is another running theme throughout the book. Solent attributes a metaphysical quality to elements of the natural world and it is to these elements that he turns most often to quiet his mind. He is forever searching for new paths to take through the fields that will permit him to avoid walking through town. Without his walks through the countryside, he would be lost:

'Walking is my cure,' he thought, 'As long as I can walk I can get my soul into shape! It must have been an instinct of self-preservation that has always driven me to walk!'

Where Powys excels most is in his character development and his description of the natural world. His prose is both poetic and precise. Even the most fleeting minor characters spring from the pages of the book. The robustness of all of the characters fill in for the general aimlessness of the plot. And for readers who love nature, there is much to appreciate in Powys' obvious zeal for all of Earth's nonhuman life. In fact, it was Solent's irreducibly effusive passion for the natural world that allowed me to look past some of his more irksome qualities.

It's difficult for me to rate this novel, as I often have trouble rating longer works. It's closer to a 4 than a 3, although I considered not rating it all. Overall I found it to be a worthwhile read, but there were significant parts of it that irritated me. Reading Powys requires a level of fortitude that I don't always find myself capable of maintaining. It's not that I routinely balk at this depth of interiority in fictional characters (e.g., Woolf's The Waves will always remain one of my favorite novels), but it's the nature of Powys' characters' inner dialogue that grows intolerable at times. As an example, Solent's persistent agony over his attraction to two very different young women (each of which fulfills at least one, but not all, of his desires in a partner) bored me almost to the point of giving up the novel. This type of banal domestic drama that Powys sometimes traffics in is certainly his weakest point for me. However, as I hope I've made clear, there are other qualities of the book that offer compensation. And, for what it's worth, I would recommend this one first over Weymouth Sands for those readers unfamiliar with Powys.

'Do you ever feel,' he said, 'as if one part of your soul belonged to a world altogether different from this world—as if it were completely disillusioned about all the things that people make such a fuss over and yet were involved in something that was very important?'

She looked straight into his face. 'I wouldn't put it like that,' she said. 'But I've always known what it was like to accept an enormous emptiness round me, echoing and echoing, and I sitting there in the middle, like a paper doll reflected in hundreds of mirrors.'

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember talking to a friend a few years ago about how everyone we knew seemed to have a 'personal philosophy' or 'central idea' to them. It's not anything formal or even remotely conscious, but it guides them in everything they do. One would need to know someone pretty well to figure out what their personal philosophy was. We had a good time putting into words what exactly all our friend's philosophies were (and some we weren't sure about). It wasn't easy, but once we hit upon the central theme for a person, a light came on and we were like 'AHA! Everything makes sense now.'-- which doesn't mean we had this person completely figured out, as people are more complicated than that. But it's more like the other way around: we had to already have figured certain things out, and spent a certain amount of time both good and bad with them, before we could come up with even a general idea of what their 'philosophy' was. That is why we limited our little game to only our closest friends.

Then a few weeks ago, while reading Thomas Mann's Joseph and His Brothers, I came upon a quote about this very same idea... and now in this book Wolf Solent again it resurfaces; this idea is the central driving force for the novel. In here, it is called alternately a 'mythology' and a 'dominant life-illusion'. I like the latter more. When I read that term I was like 'philosophy' is completely wrong, of course 'dominant life-illusion' was the term we were looking for! I understood exactly what Powys was talking about before he even had to explain it. For it is in fact an illusion placed on top of reality, a personal interpretation, a personalization of reality that makes it bearable. To our main character Wolf Solent, that life-illusion is even stronger than for most, as it is a conscious thing for him, one that he goes back to for life energy, as a respite and refuge, and perhaps the term 'mythology' works better for his particular case of illusion.

The curious thing about this life-illusion is that it goes both ways. One somehow unconsciously adopts an illusion through which to see the world, through one's own metaphors/ideas/images. But the flip side of that is that the illusion is a way of seeing oneself inside of that world as well. The lies one tends to tell oneself to smooth over the wrinkles. It is a world-illusion but also a self-illusion. It is a propping up of oneself in order to go on, and this is both a necessary and a dangerous thing, because eventually illusions shatter. Reality does not bend to fit our view of it.

I feel like I am not doing a good job of reviewing this book, but simply reacting to it. But that is perhaps my book-illusion, that necessary fiction built up in my head as I read, which is a reflection of my own experiences. I found myself quite critical of Wolf. Wolf is a bit self-righteous and it's nice to see him realize that about himself around the 'Wine' chapter. When he says he will have to let go of his self-illusion, what he means is that he cannot see himself as above everyone else anymore, as somehow more moral, because he has taken Urquhart's money and is about to rendezvous with Christie while her father is at Weymouth. These events have taken away his mythology which is a good and bad thing, in my mind, as I think it will mean he can finally be part of the community instead of set apart. For his illusion is also a crutch that distances him from people, that sheilds himself from the grit and the dirt. And without that letting down of the shield, is there any hope for true intimacy, true knowing?

I find his judgements of people a little unfair... even Weavil--though crude and weak and probably despicable, is not evil (rhyme unintended (at least not by me, but maybe by Powys? (or maybe weasel was the intention))), at least no more than anyone else... there's nothing inherently wrong with lust, it's natural within certain parameters, and these parameters are set by people/community... yet Wolf's parameters are set in his own head and too unyielding. In this he has a lot in common with Christie who also seems to set parameters in her head (though we all do). He's also not able to convince me fully of Urquhart's evil... what has he ever done, other than give off a generally negative vibe... of course there is the thing with Redfern, which he could have been involved in, but we don't know any of the details of that yet, it's all rumors.

It's like Wolf's immediate prejudice against Jason's idol (Mukalog)... what's the harm of Jason having that idol if he believes in it? Isn't that the only thing that Jason held dear other than his poetry? Even if it was sad, it's a physical form of his illusion, perhaps. Wolf has made up his mind that the idol is evil, and takes steps to destroy it, when in fact it's just a piece of sculpted stone.

And yet Wolf is no more holy than anyone else. He's a hypocrite. Going off with Christie is not innocent just because he doesn't sleep with her, ask any woman if this is any more acceptable than full out cheating. These are HIS parameters, and yet if someone else had more strict parameters, then they may see Wolf as an evil man, even WITH his mythology intact.

I wrote most of the above paragraphs in a mad rush while still in the middle of the book... but then I get to the part of the book where his mother scolds him, and I feel like she says it much better than I did (or can) in the paragraphs above:

"Can't you accept once for all that we all have to be bad sometimes... just as we all have to be good sometimes? Where you make your mistake, Wolf"--here her voice became gentler and her eyes strangely illuminated--"is in not recognizing the loneliness of everyone. We have to do outrageous things sometimes, just because we are lonely! It was in a mood like yours when you came in just now that God created the world. What could have been more outrageous than to set such a thing as this in motion? But we're in it now; and we've got to move as it moves. ... Every movement we make must be bad or good ... and we've got to make movements! We make bad movements anyhow ... all of us .. outrageous ones ... like the creation of the world! Isn't it better, then, to make them with our eyes open ... to make them honestly, without any fuss ... than just to be pushed, while we turn our heads round and pretend to be looking the other way? That's what you do, Wolf. You look the other way! You do that when your feet take you to the Malakite shop. you're doing that now, when you carry this naughty book back to that old rogue. Why do you always try and make out that your motives are good, Wolf? They're often abominable! Just as mine are. There's only one thing required of us in this world, and that's not to be a burden ... not to hang round people's necks!" p. 721

But the only reason I am so harsh on Wolf is because I identify with him. I see myself being equally unfair to people, and I also feel like my illusion is harmful at times (as well as helpful at times), and so I take out my frustrations on Wolf. I get angry at him for holding onto his mythology so uncompromisingly, when the things that will break them are so innocent... writing a book that he doesn't completely believe in for someone he thinks is potentially evil, and making love with Christie, whom he already considers as his true love in his head. I say throw those stale self-ideas away and live the way you want to live! His mythology is holding him back, while not truly making him any better than anyone else, any holier or less culpable! Is it any better to remain in a slowly deteriorating relationship with Gerda when you are essentially cheating on her, than to get a divorce and pursue the one you love in the open, come what may? I know what I'm saying is not always realistic to the practical world of the novel, but these are my gut reactions.

Perhaps Wolf's gravest sin is not his mythology--whether he keeps it or not--but his wavering indecision. If he were stronger and more decisive about absolutely not 'selling-out' no matter what, he would not suffer so much, and he would have a certain comfort in his modest life, and a certain happiness in his identity. Nor would he hurt those around him as much. He would be self-righteous but not hypocritically so. On the other hand, if he completely disregarded his mythology and followed his gut, then he would've found a different happiness, and his decisiveness in the matter would cut all ties with his mythology so that he would not feel conflicted about it. It is in that middle region of indecision where all human suffering radiates. And I find myself in that same position often. Not only with his mythology but in many things. Indecision between Christie and Gerda. Between 'good' and 'evil'. Between his mother and his father. Even indecision about what to do once he was inside Christie's bedroom.

This wavering is his ultimate downfall. And because I could see so much of myself in Wolf, I felt for him also when he fell. And boy did he fall. He not only lost his mythology, but also his identity with it as well. The days seem interminable and unbearable. Everything is bleached and meaningless. There was no filter. And there was no illusion about one-self. The disappointment with yourself follows you everywhere. And the feeling that everybody can see that in you, that you have let that compromise who you were. I felt that very deeply. And the way everyone just went about their business, some better than others, and that there was no outward signs of this loss of mythology, no funeral, no grave or gravestone or skull staring up from the weeds. That this was his alone and that he never shared it with anyone, even Christie, but that it is a personal loss that he must bear without aid. The thought that 'other people cannot possibly understand' which stops one from making personal connections when they could have been made, but only at the right time and the right place. And the way he let that slip away, let that opportunity for genuine connection be destroyed.

***

I don't think it's unfair to say that the novel itself was a bit of a mess--but probably in a good or okay way, overall. It advanced like an old car, lurching forward, then sputtering out. Then going fine for a few miles. Finally about half-way in, it gets really good and picks up speed. But even in that first half there were brilliant moments. And in the last half, there were clunky moments. It was just so uneven, though.

For instance, the scene-building was pretty good, and you get to know all the characters a little bit and plotlines start getting interesting. A certain pace is set. Then suddenly in the chapter 'Christie', he jumps ahead several months, all the just-budding plotlines have been mostly resolved... he's married now, his mother is settled in, etc. basically all momentum is lost, and we were just a third of the way into the book! So Powys has to start almost from scratch building up new momentum. It's almost like he said "well I'm tired of those concerns now, so I'm just going to jump ahead and start talking about what I'm really interested in," but then if that's the case, why didn't he start the book off there? I'm making it sound worse than it is, because truly I didn't care that much, and I think his new concerns were much more interesting anyway, and it didn't make the book any less good, but it definitely was a "hmm, interesting choice..." moment, for me.

I am not sure I get all the characters. Some of them make sense to me but others don't. And some of them make sense to me to a certain point, then they do something seemingly out of character, or out of nowhere, so that I suspect the author's hand had been stirring in it. Overall I enjoyed the passages inside of Wolf's head more than the ones where he's interacting with people. And the ones where he's only interacting with one person for a long time are also enjoyable.

The writing itself was unique and interesting. What's the opposite of personification? Is it animalification? Because that's what Powys loves to do. Except not just animals, but animal-vegetable-mineral, basically naturification. Even the characters' names: Wolf, Weavil, Redfern, Otter, bring up the ideas of animals and plants, or the spirits of them. Most of his metaphors have to do with nature in an all encompassing way. You get the sense that that's how Powys sees the world, his own life-illusion, maybe (which obviously shares some similarities with Wolf's, but I would say some differences also). So that it's not an affectation but seemed to come from a genuine source, that he sees everything as part of the natural world, but bubbling up into the human (and yes that is an artificial demarcation anyway), so that when he writes about the self it is like a bundle of nervous energy that twitches this way and that and is connected to a long lineage of instincts, memories, base-desires, and mysterious magnetisms that build up into something more--as if from the elemental to the transcendent there is a direct connection? (In the end, without his mythology, that umbilical cord is slashed for Wolf, so that it becomes only earthly sensation without higher meaning.) When it works, these passages are wonderful and transition beautifully from the outer to inner worlds and back. When it doesn't work, it's feels gaudy, corny, and awkward. But it works enough that you want to overlook the times where it doesn't.

This was a very odd book. And a very special book. I was sometimes frustrated but never bored. And I loved it, but I wanted to love it more. And that I related to it, sometimes painfully. I will definitely read more John Cowper Powys.

PS - please also go read Mariel's and Eddie's reviews.

[Richard S · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great masterpiece of psychological fiction, uniquely Powys' style but clearly influenced by Hardy, Dostoevsky and Poe. This book is so rich with allusion to nature, literature and art it's like immersing yourself in a great bath, or perhaps lying in a field in Dorset grasping great clods of earth. The main character of Wolf Solent is a tormented figure in a world of complex but believable characters. Primarily torn between his beautiful wife Gerda and his soulmate Christie, the book follows the consciousness of Wolf more than a real plot. While written in the third person, the entire book is through Wolf's consciousness so it is more like a first person narrative. There are entire chapters containing nothing more than what is going on in his complex but always interesting mind.

The book also shows a tremendous leap in quality from his earlier novels on the editing side, perhaps because Phyllis Plater was involved with his writing for the first time. Many of the types of cringeworthy sentences or paragraphs found in his earlier work are gone.

On a personal note, this was the book that got me started on JC Powys as I felt a strong affinity, however uncomfortable, with Wolf. This is my third read yet the first time I was able to go through it and not be overwhelmed. What stood out in this read was how sharply "normal" the other characters were compared to the "crazy" Wolf. Plus I went through methodically checking the references, mostly to Shakespeare, but also Dante, Rabelais, Wordsworth and others, which really added to my understanding and enjoyment.

Recommended to all, even if its difficulty is very high.

[Stephen P(who no longer can participate due to illness) · Rating 4 out of 5]

i believe originally he was a poet. this book is lyrical without drawing attention to its lyricism while winding out an enjoyable tale. this is a read made for a quiet night, to slowly become lost in a well told story without modernism and post modern adornments and strategies. i recommend it to others, and to myself as a reminder to reread.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Powys book and a real shock it was. He goes into such tremendous depth about the characters thoughts and feelings that I was reminded of Proust. He finds significance in the apparently trivial and transmits his fascination with the universe, nature, people and just about everything else. The plot, such as it is, is the story of a young man, Wolf Solent, returning to his roots in Dorset after ten years in London, but it is about all the major themes: life and death, good and evil, reality and appearance, and so on and so on. A longish book first published in 1929, it is one of my favourites, and I am forever grateful to my friend Michael for introducing me to Powys.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powys is one of the greatest novelists that not everybody knows about — I always make an effort to press him upon receptive readers — I’m a believer, a bookish zealot — I’m always more than happy to spread the word of literary awesomeness, I do realize that not every reader is going to dig Powys. Books by Powys have a knack to haunt a reader long after they’re done. His writing is magical, beautiful, rhapsodic, breathtaking, meandering, timeless — very dense classic prose. He’s in the company of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Proust, Hardy, D. H. Lawrence — Powys (dubbed by some as the Anti-Hemingway — which I find funny, I love “Papa” too — he is his own writing beast, Powys is another unique species of writer.) He’s a writer’s writer. With the generous spirit of Shakespearean shrewdness, he evokes an aged skepticism of everything, and yet a youthful gullibility about everything — it’s all very enchanting and lovely, and far too good to miss. In this contemporary world of instant gratification, it would be far too easy to neglect this master storyteller, and it would be a shame to forget him.

One of the things that makes a Powys novel like Wolf Solent special is how he lays down a historical foundation that is based on legends. In all legends, there’s a grain of truth — the old hills and dells, moors and coastlines of Wales and England (in particular) have a history and mythology that have deep roots in the lives of the people who live within the covers of his books. The people — they are many and varied, the beautiful and ugly of humanity are all well represented. Pagans and Christians — philosophy and superstition overlap and separate — mingling and repelling — they co-exist with a feigned ignorance or have the willingness to overlook “the matter” out of politeness, and more times than not, they are blatant with their venom — gossiping the next chance meeting with an ear waiting to listen — creating their own legends from the bits of truth of what was muddied by their own perceptions. There’s an intensity of life that is palatable; life is complicated, yet it’s simple. The density of the writing is so absorbing, that’s what makes it so dang fascinating — he creates a sense of place and time, textured and sensual—decadent (in the best sense of the term.) The thing I love so much about his writing is that I have to be on my toes through all of it — my brain is slowly dining on every word, savoring every last bit to the end. I found it hard to put the book down some nights — and I was haunted by it until I picked it up again.
Wolf walks a lot (like the character Porius in another Powys novel of that name) — here, there, and everywhere — if I were his wife, Gerda, I would’ve slapped him silly for his random acts of disappearing — “Where the Hell have you been Mr. Solent? I gave you up as dead in a ditch somewhere along the road — get in here, sit, and have your tea.” (As it is long before the convenience of cell phones, give the nearest lad a ha’penny and have him run a message home at least! Ah, but he doesn’t think of doing that until near the end of the book.) I can’t blame Gerda at all for feeling as she did, a young wife finding herself married to this peculiar, distracted, but mostly harmless fool. He mentally wandered in a self-absorbed state, what he called “sinking into his soul”, also known as his “mythology” a secret name for his secret habit of daydreaming — it is a carryover from childhood that appalled his mother, but his father encouraged. Daydreams are a beautiful thing to have access to — they feed the creative mind all sorts of goodies, but it can be detrimental for an adult to go about in a fantasy world. Absentmindedness is quaint to a point, after a while, people can become annoyed when your distracted manner is no longer entertaining as you are causing inconvenience — one day you have your head in the clouds, the next day it changes to having your head firmly stuck up your ass (there’s a time and place for everything, you see.) Wolf’s walking seems directionless, yet he follows his nose like a canine; examining his internal world and then becoming suddenly enamored by the world outside of himself — the verdant curve of a hill, the muddy stillness of a pond, the blue of the sky, and the golden meadow brimming with buttercups; body and soul, dreams and realities, within and without, life and death, good and evil — his thoughts often veering over the edge into the supernatural. The dead and buried (in particular, his father and the young Redfern) live on in memories and imaginings — laughing at the arrogance of the living.

Truth be told, the fool needed to grow up and get ahold of himself. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Wolf and his ‘mythology’, he cracked me up quite often—from the beginning, he got sacked from his teaching job in London for his “malice-dance” in which he just went off on an inappropriate verbal jaunt that had nothing to do with teaching History to the boys in his charge...

“He was telling his pupils quietly about Dean Swift; and all of a sudden some mental screen or lid or dam in his own mind completely collapsed and he found himself pouring forth a torrent of wild, indecent invectives upon every aspect of modern civilization.”p.2

This is the prevailing attitude throughout the book — he has something eating at him.

“He felt as though, with aeroplanes spying down upon every retreat like ubiquitous vultures, with the lanes invaded by iron-clad motors like colossal beetles, with no sea, no lake, no river, free from throbbing, thudding engines, the one thing most precious of all in the world was being steadily assassinated.” P.3

I agreed with him on most things, yet there were times I found his obsessive waffling over the flirtatious and sexy Gerda and the solemn and thoughtful Christie to be comical, bordering on absurd — he wanted his cake and eat it until it made him sick. The reality of Wolf’s life is invading and destroying his ‘mythology’ — the being in a rut, teaching history to boys at the school for thirty years just irks him to no end — he longs to have financial independence to allow him to live comfortably and to have freedom. I certainly didn’t want to see him lose that lovely imaginativeness that was natural — instinctive, nigh innocent (yet not entirely), but it was clear that his behavior was becoming a concern by those who knew him. It isn’t every day that your father-in-law (a monument maker) indicates his concern by saying:

“Tis no comfort,” he remarked, “though I be the man I be for cossetting they jealous dead, to think that ‘in a time and half a time,’ as Scripture says, I’ll be chipping “Rest in the Lord” on me wone son-in-law’s moniment. But since us be talking snug and quiet, mister, on this sorrowful theme”—Mr. Torp’s voice assumed his undertaker’s tone, which long usage had rendered totally different from his normal one—“’twould be a mighty help, mister, to I, for a day to come, if ye’d gie us a tip as to what word — out of Book or out of plain speech — ye’d like best for I to put above ‘ee?” p. 466

As he moped around on his many walks, at times considering that maybe he should go drown himself in Lenty Pond as alluded by those who believed it to be his destiny, (I seriously felt concerned that he would!) I wished I could’ve advised him — “You should write a book of your own — you really need to.” If anything could possibly reset and settle his mind, it would be that — writing clears the decks of a busy mind that wanders. Writing is one of our most intimate acts of creativity, it can center one and it can unravel one — one can be rattled to the core by the act of writing, sometimes there’s nothing more startling than to write down the thoughts that haunt you to the point of something comparable to madness. Eventually, it does work out those bothersome bugs and gives focus. Then it’s nigh terrifying to share one’s own words on paper with anyone else because they are so personal — private. For example, when Wolf reads Christie’s writing that she had hidden away, she was pissed when she found out — his reading it ruined it for her, she wasn’t ready to have anyone read her thoughts. The eccentric poet, Jason Otter, shared his poetry with Wolf on many occasions, but when Wolf suggests that he should send them to London to be published, Jason became angry—feeling certain that the Londoners would laugh at his poetry. Anyway, I can only hope that Wolf came to writing later in life beyond the last page — that’s another thing that I love about this book, there is a sense that life goes on after the book ends. His walk through the meadow of buttercups was the most sublime event — he had changed, “grown up” in a manner of speaking — he may have lost his “mythology”, but he gained a new sight and insight. Once again, he reveled in taking notice of the smallest things such as the beauty of a snail as it went creeping along from a dock-leaf to the boards of the pigsty shed. Accepting the reality — “I am I” — “Forget and enjoy” — “Endure or escape” — it was his body that saved him — for this, his spirit is grateful.

I simply adored this book and could easily read it again—I have a few bits here from some of the many dog-eared pages, and then I’m done with my wordy testimony...

“Millions of miles of blue sky; and beyond that, millions of miles of sky that could scarcely be called blue or any other colour—pure unalloyed emptiness, stretching outwards from where he sat—with his stick and coat opposite him—to no conceivable boundary or end!” p. 10

“Every time the hedge grew low, as they jogged along, every time a gate or a gap interrupted its green undulating rampart, he caught a glimpse of that great valley, gathering the twilight about it as a dying god might gather to his heart the cold, wet ashes of his last holocaust.” P. 25

“Nature was always prolific of signs and omens to his mind; and it had become a custom with him to keep a region of his intelligence alert and passive for a thousand whispers, hints, obscure intimations that came to him in this way. Why was it that a deep, obstinate resistance somewhere in his consciousness opposed itself to such a solution?” p 274

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book so much I've read it twice already in the couple/few years I've been familiar with it. Set in a rural English village, where not all traces of Paganism have vanished, the main character finds himself involved with a number of odd people and strange goings on, including two women; one who is the epitomy of physical attraction, the other mentally and spiritually stimulating and the frustration that neither can apprarently be both. The language in the book is amazing, having been compared to Shakespeare and Tolstoy in the sense of pure poetic beauty, and there are many strange currents running through this story, many of which you seem to sense or feel, rather than comprehend on any conscious level. Almost mystical in its transcendent power, and hard to describe. I believe I have read somewhere that Powy's had published several books that were received well enough, but that he had had some mystical epiphany himself around middle age and started producing works of much higher artistic accomplishment. This may be one of those books that you have to stick with a little, but once Wolf is in the village and things get going it seems to get a hold of you with (to me) endlessly fascinating storylines.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

The vocabulary on this guy!

Four stars doesn’t adequately represent the way that I feel about this novel, which is to say that I loved it, but I also spent a lot of time feeling curious and baffled by it too. For what it’s worth, I think it gives me a solid idea of what to expect from other John Cowper P. novels, which I will absolutely be reading and probably enjoying.

I love Theodore Francis and now John Cowper, and I especially like their oddball approaches to religion and everything else. There’s a real adoration (maybe the wrong word?) for weirdos and social outsiders that I can’t help but enjoy. They are a bit side of center as far as british literature goes from this period and there’s a sense of moral aimlessness that could be a bit frustrating from someone wanting more of a point to their reading, but I’ve had a real nice time sitting with these odd characters and thoughts and beautiful, complex words.

[Jim Leckband · Rating 3 out of 5]

Abandon all hope of liking this book if you are bored by Terrence Malick's movies or Gustav Mahler's symphonies. However if you dig incredibly atmospheric, earthy, psychological/mythical prose where nothing much happens besides endless cups of tea and much, much, much internal dithering by Wolf Solent then this book could be your ... um ... cup of tea.

I would gather Powys is a "writer's writer". Individual sentences and paragraphs are luscious without being overwritten. He is the anti-Hemingway in just about every sense. I did enjoy the first part of the book much more than the middle parts when I did kinda lose my patience and nerve when I saw I still had hundreds of pages left and still not much was happening.

[Cathode Ray Jepsen · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book that Thomas Hardy would have written if he was a glue sniffing pervert.

[Corto · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are quite a few reviews for this book that provide exceptional literary analyses. Peruse those if you're looking for deep structural and thematic assessments of this novel. I can only discuss how this book hit me on a personal level.

This is a novel about a man's mid-life crisis. As a 50 year old man, there were quite a few things that I could relate to - and it was only that, that kept me plowing through. This novel is chock-full of philosophical ruminations that made me want to scream at the character, "JUST GET ON WITH IT AND SHIT OR GET OFF THE POT." That may unfair to Wolf - we can't make the protagonists in books do what we want. Everyone has to find his own way to to inner-peace.

Wolf, a history teacher is fired from his job for going on a Luddite-esque rant, and is forced to retreat to the town of his birth and upbringing - the site of the disintegration of his parents marriage, and furthermore the place where his robustly philandering father is laid to rest. Powys wastes no time in throwing Solent into the stew of the Dorset region. He renews his acquaintance with his father's most prominent former mistress, meets his new benefactor - a rich, dirty old man who enlists Wolf's aid in writing a scandalous history of Dorset, and he espies and falls in love with the beautiful child-of-nature daughter of the tombstone-maker (who has been tasked with making a stone for Wolf's predecessor). This, is just the initial wave of the principal cast of characters Wolf becomes entangled with.

Once ensconced in Dorset, Wolf begins the task of writing the scandalous history, which begins to weigh on his sense of morality...and then meets the intellectual daughter of the town's incestuous bookseller who raped his elder daughter and got her with child (and kills herself). He falls in love with the surviving daughter, and hence the conflict of the novel is set and primed.

He marries the beautiful child-of-nature girl (she speaks to his Luddite, Naturalist inclinations), but falls powerfully in love with the intellectual, booksellers daughter.

A whole bunch of other stuff happens in this novel, but these two moral quandaries- the task of writing the scandalous history of Dorset and the love triangle, pose the most formidable challenges to Wolf and the crux of the novel.

In a nutshell, Wolf has a complex interior moral life and philosophy. Initially, he see's himself squarely on the side of good. The effort of writing the history and dealing with his feelings towards the two women force him to grapple with his morality. The latter aspect of this conflict was the most interesting to me and provided the most intense moments in the book. His self-illusions are stripped away and he is forced to confront the fact that maybe he isn't a "good" person after all. He is guilty, at least in his heart, of the things his father was vilified for, and that provokes a moral crisis. More so, he is confronted with the fact of his selfishness, and his broader awareness that other people have lives when he's not there to witness them. His final moral arrangement with himself is interesting as well.

There is significantly more to the book, but that's all I'll comment on. In this respect, it's a good psychological novel. I haven't read much that approaches the depth and deftness of Powy's examination of personal morality.

As a more direct person than Wolf, there were times I was very frustrated with his decision making processes. At one point, I was ready to quit the book because I lost sympathy for Wolf's choices. Obviously, I persevered. If you enjoy a good bildungsroman, this book is for you.

[Micha · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I am about to say about this mammoth of a book is inevitably going to sound like "one prolonged windy bellow, covering the impervious grazing of a complacent ox!" For such is the nature of this book: unshakably calm, massive, and, may I say, cosmic.

This is an interesting word to use, considering the earthiness, which suffuses most of the book. "Wolf Solent" is a book of endless walks through the pleasant and placid English countryside, with its high hedges and shallow ponds, and of cups of tee. It is a slow-paced melodrama without the drama. What is left then? A fairly simple story of a floundering and blundering 36-year-old returning to the place of his birth, seeking to get back in touch with his long-dead father. This pursuit is postponed most of the book, however, as he swiftly falls in love with not one, but two women, at the same time, one barely a woman. What ensues is a delicate exploration of human relations, both on a sensual and on a spiritual level. John Cowper Powys astonishes with his adroitness in these matters.

So far, I have hardly justified my use of the fanciful analogy above, the one with the cosmic ox. The reason for this is because I have only described the machinations of the novel and not the perspective, the vista but not the onlooker. With this, I have done Powys an injustice, for Wolf Solent, whose deliciously confused consciousness we inhabit as readers, must be one of the most unique protagonists in all of literature (and I have met quite a few, from the puerile Oskar Matzerath to the ribald Leopold Bloom).

Wolf is a strange one. While he indulges, no, luxuriates, in reality, treating the women around him abysmally, he is, at the same time, oddly removed from it. The comings and goings of humans are of no concern of his, being always aware of the airy heights of the sky, which give way to primordial darkness, above his head, and the soil and worms and core of the earth beneath his feet. There is a certain depth behind everything, even behind a pigsty, which is where the novel ends. In observing the infinitesimal in nature, he witnesses the cosmic forces of good and evil in the universe, which constantly struggle for superiority. He calls this sensation his "mythology."

As you can imagine, Wolf's stream of consciousness is interesting, to say the least. But how in the world should this alien mind be able to describe something as ordinary as a tea party? An aborigine might as well attempt to describe a New York skyscraper to his fellow tribespeople. The scene around the fire would be bizarre and confused. So is "Wolf Solent." This, however, is the beauty of the book, what makes it so very captivating; Powys' practical prank of placing someone like Wolf in the serene rolling hills of Somerset, England. Powys was a truly masterful writer to be able to pull this off, not only just, but wholly, brilliantly, believably, rendering "Wolf Solent" one of the best novels I've come upon in a long time.

[Kristy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whoa. How had I never heard of this book before? This was an epic, claustrophobic, beautiful, meaty, exhausting and wonderful novel.

Wolf Solent is a 35 year old school teacher who lives with his sarcastic and dominating mother in London where he has recently been fired for an uncontrolled outburst ("dancing his 'malice dance'") in front of his class. The novel starts as Wolf rides the train to a small town in Dorset, in the southwest of England, to take a job as a secretary/ghostwriter for Squire Urquhart who is compiling a history of all the scandals and perversions in the county going back to the beginning of its written history. Twenty-five years ago, Wolf and his mother left this same small town for London after Wolf's father had multiple affairs. His father continued his depravations and ended up dying in the workhouse and being buried in a pauper's grave.

Wolf quickly falls under the spell of Gerda Torp, the beautiful daughter of the local headstone carver (and sister of the amazingly named Lob Torp -- actually everyone has amazing names in this book....), and the strange attraction of the plain and intellectual Christie Malakite, the daughter of a local bookseller who knew his father. The reader is quickly drawn into Wolf's visceral experience of nature, light, and color, as well as his hard-to-pin-down "mythology" or "life-illusion" that touches all of his experiences, until it leaves him forever. It is impossible for me to cram the intensity of the plot and characters into this review, but much revolves around Wolf's lust for Gerda and philosophical connection with Christie, the push and pull of small town secrets, and (most of all) his sensual and ecstatic experience of nature.

Powys published this book in 1929, when he was in his early 50s, and it was his first successful publication although he had seen professional success as a charismatic lecturer in America, where he lived from 1905-1930. Philosophical, but earthy, with some of the most rich and loaded sentences I've ever read (and they just keep coming!). There are scenes and characters in this book that will stay with me forever. The book leans on Thomas Hardy's pastoral settings but has the sensuality and romantic overload of D.H. Lawrence. Really, though, this novel is one of a kind. It is an undertaking at 600+ pages, but my goodness it is worth it.

[Brent · Rating 2 out of 5]

The description of natural phenomena, etc.can be quite transporting at times, but the lack of anyone's inner existence other than that of the main charcter, combined with the endless concatenation of 'mythology'- 'walking stick'- 'Lenty Pond'- 'Gerda'- 'Christie'- 'Mother'- repeat, left this reader feeling unmoved by the sheer lack of emotional momentum. The only interior monologue in the novel is that of Wolf Solent, and he chews the same cud over and over. This Dorset stuff isn't for me-- take me back to dear old Wessex.

Wolf Somnolent.

[Aimee · Rating 5 out of 5]

greatest shit of all time

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1929, Powys, then 57 years old and still earning a living from his traveling lecture show, published Wolf Solent. It was his first work as a mature novelist, an intensely poetic character-study of the kind that would become his specialty, and it was brutally analytical. The conflict between brothers, the hypnotic eroticism of girls, the depraved elders, and the remnants of innocence are all typical components of Powysian psychodrama. Wolf Solent is not a sentimental pastoral. Powys, who extolled the virtues of nature, never hesitated to expose its horrors. Violent implications abound in his work. He considered it a mistake to ignore what he referred to as "the necessity of opposition," in a somewhat Zen way: Good and Evil; Male and Female; Life and Death; Appearance and Reality. He claims that all of these

"all solid entities have to dissolve, if they are to outlast their momentary appearance, into atmosphere, while they must be joined together, forced into one another, and proven dependent upon each other."

Similar to Hardy's Return of the Native, the novel appears to be a fairly simple tale of a native son's return. After having a mental breakdown in London, Wolf, the title character and incredibly sensitive person, returns to his hometown on the South Coast of England. However, he completely loses his innocence at home rather than regaining it. He is traveling to a supposedly peaceful writing assignment for the local squire in order to get away from the city's intensity, comprehend his past, and in some way defend his deeply wounded mother. Nothing goes according to plan. He gets caught up in a number of romantic and professional affairs and learns terrible things about some former neighbors and friends. In his mind, a struggle rages between his mother's anxiety and his father's joy of life. He starts to feel sympathy for his father's mistress and develops feelings for his half-sister. He came for a job that was completely different from what he had anticipated. Actually, there's nothing in this town that relieves the intensity.
Ultimately, he returns to the anonymity of London, disillusioned. The novel can be summed up as "You can't go home again," but Powys finds this to be far too brief. It is what permeates every aspect of this book, from the living hero to every grass blade, housefly, and surrounding environment. He plays out every interpretation of his life on numerous reflective walks through the English countryside in an attempt to make sense of it. His respect and care for the natural world are admirable, though they can be challenging at times. Powys stayed where others might go because he detested most aspects of modern life, including capitalism and technology. This is central to the narrative and every one of Powys's books.

At one point, the critic George Steiner asserted that Powys was the only English author of the twentieth century who was comparable to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. The renowned English novelist Margaret Drabble feels that "we need to pay attention to this man." She describes the fantasy setting of his books as "densely populated, thickly forested, mountainous, erudite, strangely self-sufficient." Although this country receives fewer visitors than Tolkien's, it is just as fascinating and has more air.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book. To begin, the writing is pristine and poetic. While I did not grow attached to any of the characters, from a distance I could appreciate the sheer lyricism of the prose. An example is the following passage, “Wolf stepped aside to permit the girl to follow her father; and as she passed him, she gave him a glance that resembled the sudden trembling of a white-lilac branch, heavy with rain and sweetness. Her languorous personality dominated the whole occasion for him; and as he watched her swaying body moving between those oblong stones in that could enclosure, the thought rose within him that if his subterranean vice couldn’t find a place for loveliness like this, there must be something really inhuman in its exactions.” Oh to be able to put words together like that. Additionally, Powys possesses rich comedy and sarcasm, particularly when describing the fuzziness of Wolf’s thoughts, “Wolf’s wits, moving now, in spite of the fumes of smoke and alcohol, with restored clarity, achieved a momentous orientation of many obscure matters.” All in all, this is an entertaining read.

I will not give away the plot too much. Wolf is a minor gentleman and writer. He is also possessed of a personal philosophy that seems grand to him, but when abstracted at a distance I could not logically reconcile. He is torn between two women, and for much of the novel seems selfishly conflicted between doing what is expected of him by society, what he wants, and what he can get away with. There are frequent allusions to plants and animals, including the names of people. It is as if for Wolf life is an illusion of his own making, and by his desires and his own logic, he is the master of the earth. A wonderful extract encapsulating this thought is his statement that “The world is not made of bread and honey…nor of the sweet flesh of girls. This world is made of clouds and of the shadows of clouds. It is made of mental landscapes, porous as air, where men and women are as trees walking, and as reeds shaken by the wind.”

In the end, he is shaken indeed. “Reason? Justice? The forces that victimized and paralysed him now were those that had created the world. Who was he to contend against them?” To find out, you will have to read this lengthy, beautifully written book.

See my other reviews here!

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

I must admit that choosing my rating for Wolf Solent was somewhat of a challenge. I really wanted to love this book but found it very hard-going. Of course the description is meticulous and does a wonderful job of explaining some of the joys of the countryside but I'm a sucker for a strong and gripping plot and for me this fell some way short.

I didn't really warm to any of the characters and often felt as though this was a poor man's Tolstoy or Dickens. I genuinely feel some sorrow for that last comment but I have to be honest. It may be that I come back to Powys in later years and finally appreciate him more but this had too much James Joyce and not enough Tolstoy for me. It is most likely a great literary piece but not one which resonated with me.

[Erich C · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up to 4

Things I Liked More
-Evocative descriptions of nature
-The peripheral characters, with sinister undercurrents and nasty secrets
-Conversations with William S
-It didn't turn into a ghost story

Things I Liked Less
-Wolf's "mythology," a clunky concept to describe experiences of mindfulness, dissolving of the ego, and pantheism
-Wolf Solent
-The bagginess of the book
-Too much pining
-Undeveloped female characters
-Too many exclamation points!

I enjoyed the book overall, and I look forward to reading other Wessex novels.

p 4: In the dusty, sunlit space of that small tobacco-stained carriage he seemed to see, floating and helpless, an image of the whole round earth! And he saw it bleeding and victimized, like a smooth-bellied, vivisected frog. He saw it scooped and gouged and scraped and harrowed. He saw it hawked at out of the humming air. He saw it netted in a quivering entanglement of vibrations, heaving and shuddering under the weight of iron and stone.

p 89: He listened, fascinated. That particular intonation of the blackbird's note, more full of the spirits of air and of water than any sound upon earth, had always possessed a mysterious attraction for him. It seemed to hold, in the sphere of sound, what amber-paved pools surrounded by hart's-tongue ferns contain in the sphere of substance. It seemed to embrace in it all the sadness that it is possible to experience without crossing the subtle line into the region where sadness becomes misery.

p 172: The creatures looked so powerful and so contemptuous beside the stablemen who led them that Wolf, as he approached this procession, saw for a moment the whole human race in an inferior and ignominious light - saw them as some breed of diabolically-clever monkeys, who, by a debased trick of cunning, had been able to reduce to servitude, though not to servility, animals far nobler and more godlike than themselves.

p 277: Airy and light as it now was, his soul seemed to have been liberated in some secret way from all that clogged and burdened it. The slave galleon of his manias rocked and tossed on a smooth tide; but his soul, like a careless albatross, rode on the masthead.

p 290: Wolf surveyed her form as she lay there, one strong leg exposed as high as the knee, and one disarranged tress of wavy grey hair hanging across her cheek. And it came over him with a wave of remorseful shame that this formidable being, so grotesquely reduced, was the actual human animal out of whose entrails he had been dragged into light and air.

p 389: It was as though he had suddenly emerged, by some hidden doorway, into a world entirely composed of vast, cool, silent-growing vegetation, a world where no men, no beasts, no birds, broke the mossy stillness; a world of sap and moisture and drooping ferns; a world of leaves that fell and fell for ever, leaf upon leaf; a world where that which slowly mounted upwards endured eternally the eternal lapse of that which slowly settled downwards; a world that itself was slowly settling down, leaf upon leaf, grass-blade upon grass-blade, towards some cool, wet, dark, unutterable dimension in the secret heart of silence!

[Sini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Met even veel verbazing als plezier las ik Wolf Solent (1929), de meest succesvolle roman van de vrij onbekende Engelse schrijver John Cowper Powys (1872-1963). Eigenlijk was dat toeval. Ik zag eerst ineens dat mijn geliefde excentriekeling Willem Brakman veel van deze schrijver hield. Vervolgens trof ik in "Zuiverende kroniek" van Vestdijk een jubelend lang essay over Powys aan. Daarna kwam ik er al googelend achter dat Cowper Powys vurig werd bewonderd door George Steiner (die hem zelfs een evenknie van Tolstoi en Dostojevski noemde), Iris Murdoch en Angus Wilson. Vooral "Wolf Solent", "A Glastonbury Romance", "Autobiography" en "Porius" worden door de Powys- bewonderaars hooglijk geroemd. Ook "Weymouth Sands", "Maiden Castle" en "Owen Glendower" worden wel als "meesterwerken" betiteld. Toch is deze schrijver vrij onbekend, vooral omdat zijn boeken zo volkomen ongewoon zijn en zo enorm dik. Dat alles maakte mij heel nieuwsgierig, dus kocht ik "Wolf Solent" (in het Engels, al schijnt de - inmiddels verramsjte- vertaling heel goed te zijn). En ik ben heel tevreden.

De excentrieke hoofdpersoon van dit boek, Wolf Solent, gaat op 35- jarige leeftijd terug naar het Dorset van zijn jeugd. Want in Londen is zijn leven en loopbaan vastgelopen. Al snel merkt de lezer dat Wolf sterk geneigd is om alles wat hij waarneemt te transformeren tot veelzeggend en symbolisch beeld. De coupé van de trein waarin hij afreist naar Dorset is voor hem bijvoorbeeld een schrikwekkend symbool voor wat er mis is met heel de gemoderniseerde wereld: "In the dusty, sunlit space of that small tobacco- stained carriage he seemed to see, floating and helpless, an image of the whole round earth! And he saw it bleeding and victimized, like a smooth- bellied, vivisected frog. He saw it scooped and gouged and scraped and harrowed. He saw it hawked at out of the humming air. He saw it netted in a quivering entanglement of vibrations, heaving and shuddering under the weight of iron and stone". Op dat moment weten wij al dat Wolf zich totaal niet thuis voelt in de moderne wereld, maar de intensiteit van dit samenballende beeld is niettemin verrassend. Nog intenser zijn evenwel de vele beelden die daarna nog komen, vooral de extatische beelden die in Wolfs hoofd ontstaan door zijn hunkerende en alles in zich opzuigende blik op de natuur. Bijvoorbeeld het volgende, dat naar mijn idee heel fraai een sensatie van oneindigheid, leegte en onwerkelijkheid oproept: "Millions and millions of blue sky; and beyond that, millions of miles that could scarcely be called blue or any other colour- pure unalloyed emptiness, stretching outwards from where he sat- with his stick and coat opposite him- to no conceivable boundary or end! Didn't that almost prove that the whole affair was a matter of thought? "

Ook kan ik uren kijken naar de volgende passage, waarin de toch al zo groene wereld nog vijf keer groener wordt door de vreemde lichtval: "The evening itself, through which they drove, following a road parallel to and a little to the right of that one which had ended with the cemetery, was beautiful with an exceptional kind of beauty. It was one of those spring evenings which are neither golden from the direct rays of the sinking sun, nor opalescent from their indirect diffused reflection. A chilly wind had arisen, covering the western sky, into which they were driving, with a thick bank of clouds. The result of this complete extinction of the sunset was that the world became a world in which every green thing upon its surface received a fivefold addition to its greenness. It was as if an enormous green tidal wave, composed of a substance more transluscent than water, had flowed over the whole earth; or rather as if some diaphanous essence of all the greenness created by long days of rain had evaporated during this one noon, only to fall down, with the approach of twilight, in a cold dark emerald- coloured dew". Eveneens behoorlijk overweldigend vind ik de volgende extatische natuurbeleving, waarin water, lucht, hemel en aarde in elkaar reflecteren: "Filmy white clouds, so feathery that they faded into the air at their outer edges, swept northwards over the roofs of the town; while the liquid blue of the sky, visible in fluctuating pools and estuaries between those fleecy vapours, seemed to obliterate everything that was hard and opaque from the whole terrestial globe. So flowing and so diffused was the heaven above, that it seemd to spill and brim over, making the pavements underfoot appear like interstices of another, a second sky, whose receding depths were green instead of blue!"

In dit soort passages zien we Wolf onnavolgbaar jubelen over de natuur in het Dorset van zijn jeugd. Dat doet hij met de ongeremde intensiteit van een kind. En met een waarnemingsvermogen dat zich aan geen enkele conventie of conventionele begrenzing stoort. Niet met de al te routineuze blik van de volwassene, niet met de al te snel categoriserende blik van de al te moderne mens. Want geen enkel verschijnsel is voor Wolf gewoon: alle waarneming en beleving is een avontuur, en bijna alles leidt tot een epifanie die een verbluffend nieuw licht werpt op de hem omringende wereld en vaak ook op zijn eigen positie in die wereld. Al vrij vroeg in de roman mijmert hij over zijn "mythology", zijn zo dierbare "life- illusion". Dat is zijn innig gekoesterde voorliefde om zich helemaal onder te dompelen in "sensations" en vormen van "trance" die anderen niet kennen, om naar aanleiding van ogenschijnlijk doodgewone natuurervaringen helemaal te verzinken in de diepste diepten van zijn ziel, en om uit al die sensaties vervolgens magische en mythische werelden te weven die volkomen haaks staan op het realisme van alledag. Vaak waagt hij zich daarbij in de "margins of consciousness, where the rational fades away into the irrational", en dus in ervaringsgebieden waar de woorden geen vat op hebben. Dus in ervaringen die niet mededeelbaar zijn, en strikt individueel. Hij wil deze bovendien niet eens met anderen delen, zoals hij ook niemand iets over het bestaan van zijn "mythology" en "life- illusion" wil vertellen. Misschien uit angst om zijn ervaringen te banaliseren of te versimpelen, wellicht uit vrees voor bespotting. Misschien ook vanwege hun broosheid: deze ervaringen maken immers allemaal onderdeel uit van een "life- illusion", dus van een web van mythen en magische meerduidige beelden dat maar zo door de realiteit kan worden verscheurd, en dat bovendien doordesemd is van fundamentele onzekerheden en onoplosbare twijfels. Want elke ervaring is voor Wolf zodanig extatisch en verwonderlijk dat hij tevens niet te duiden is, en niet kan worden samengevat met een heldere en definitieve conclusie. Voorts ervaart Wolf dat zijn ervaringen steeds door heel andere ervaringen worden opgevolgd, door totaal nieuwe epifanieën die de vorige epifanieën vaak weerleggen, corrigeren, aanvullen of op zijn minst heel anders belichten.

Bovendien is Wolfs web van mythen door en door ambigu, en doordrenkt van angsten en vertwijfeling. Alles in Wolfs mythologie staat namelijk in het teken van de "cosmic struggle" tussen Goed en Kwaad. Ook de natuur in Dorset ziet hij in dat licht, net als de gebeurtenissen in het (fictieve) plaatsje Ramsgard. Er is ook echt wel het nodige aan de hand: Wolf krijgt de opdracht om een schandaalkroniek over Dorset te helpen schrijven vol van perversies; zijn 'voorganger' bij deze opdracht is onder mysterieuze en nooit opgehelderde omstandigheden gestorven; er is sprake van incest, onechte kinderen, liederlijke verdorvenheid, voornemens tot moord en zelfmoord, vlagen van waanzin en van lijkopgravingen op klaarlichte dag.... Veel van de excentrieke personages in "Wolf Solent" zijn bovendien fundamenteel wanhopig, worden door innerlijke demonen gekweld, of worden door andere duistere affecten en motieven voortgedreven. En deze selectieve opsomming geeft nog maar een heel summier beeld van het kwaad dat in "Wolf Solent" overal woekert, in de natuur of zelfs tijdens een typisch Engels partijtje cricket of in pauzes tussen twee gemoedelijke kopjes thee.

Wolfs epifanieën worden dan ook steeds duisterder, zwarter, troebeler, soms bijna "Gothic". Een simpel meertje, Lenty Pond, wordt bijvoorbeeld door de onderwaterse modder en duisterheid een meeslepend symbool van doodsdreiging en verdorvenheid. Wat bij Wolf veel angst en walging oproept, maar ook fascinatie en een geheimzinnige verlokking. De witte maar bemodderde ledematen van twee jongens, die zwemmen in Lenty Pond, groeien uit tot symbolen van de ondoorgrondelijke verknopingen van pure blankheid en van het troebele kwaad dat die blankheid bezoedelt. De ogen van Jason Otter- een vertwijfelde dichter- roepen voor Wolf onbeschermde werelden op vol van pijn: "Jason's own eyes were not tragic. They were something worse. They were exposed; they were stripped bare; they seemed to peer forth helplessly from the human skull behind them, as though some protective filaments that ought to have been there were NOT there!". De jubelende epifanieën van Wolf worden steeds vaker afgewisseld met extatische fantasiebeelden over de tragiek die de natuur uitstraalt, over de alomtegenwoordige verrotting, of over de tragische maar onvermijdelijke sterfelijkheid van alle schepselen. Dat laatste meent hij zelfs al te horen in het gezang van merels, of het verlokkende en bijna erotische merelgezang dat een van zijn geliefden zo treffend na kan doen. En bovendien kan Wolf niet kiezen tussen twee complexe liefdes: die voor Gerda (een sublieme, erotisch aantrekkelijke schoonheid, maar Wolf vermoedt neigingen tot liederlijkheid en overspel, en omdat haar vader grafstenenmaker is zijn er ook associaties met de dood) en die voor Christie (een bijna Platoonse geliefde, en de welhaast volmaakte personificatie van filosofische vergeestelijking, maar ze is weinig "lichamelijk" en de liederlijkheid van haar vader spookt soms hinderlijk door Wolfs hoofd). Elk van deze twee liefdes geeft op zich al veel aanleiding tot twijfel en verscheurdheid. Al was het maar door hun erotische dubbelzinnigheid. En al was het maar door de - soms gesublimeerde, soms wanhopig verdrongen of soms uit angst onbevredigde- onderstromen van verlangens die zij bij Wolf oproepen. Maar de continue aarzeling tussen beide liefdes, en tussen de tegengestelde verlangens die zij omvatten, verscheurt Wolfs zelfs nog meer. Want die aarzeling splijt pas echt zijn toch al gespleten ik.

Het overal sluimerende kwaad wordt door Powys werkelijk prachtig voelbaar gemaakt, in ongelofelijk indringende sfeerbeelden. Fascinerend daarbij is dat je nooit weet of dit kwaad echt een realistisch fenomeen is of een spookbeeld in Wolfs fantasie. Maar juist dat maakt het kwaad - en de alomtegenwoordigheid van sterfelijkheid en verval- voor mij extra ongrijpbaar en suggestief, en extra meeslepend. Bovendien, de uitgesponnen en minutieus beschreven "sensations" van Wolf leveren niet alleen prachtige natuurbeschrijvingen op, maar ook prachtige analyses van wat Wolf voelt en waarom. Daardoor krijg je niet alleen heel fraaie perspectieven aangeboden op de natuur in het Dorset van rond 1920, maar ook intrigerende glimpen op het brein van Wolf Solent. Powys grossiert in prachtige schilderingen van in elkaar resonerende binnen- en buitenwerelden, met een subtiliteit en nauwkeurigheid die mij soms herinnerde aan (de door Powys bewonderde) Proust. De intensiteit van zijn natuurbeleving doet mij sterk denken aan dichters als Wordsworth of aan Powys' geliefde voorbeeld Thomas Hardy. Ook doen de belevingen van Wolf soms denken aan (de door Powys eveneens geadoreerde) Dostojevski, vanwege de toenemende koortsachtigheid en vertwijfeling ervan: de wijze waarop hij gekweld wordt door nauwelijks door hemzelf begrepen angsten, de wijze waarop hij ineens merkt dat hij een bepaalde handeling heeft verricht die hij helemaal niet bewust van plan was, de wijze waarop hij helemaal van de ene stemming in de andere wordt geslingerd en weer terug, en overkoepelend aan dat alles de existentiële vertwijfeling omdat zijn "life- illusions" allemaal aan gort gaan en omdat hij zonder die illusies geen enkele aanwijsbare identiteit heeft. Hij voelt zich steeds meer een verzameling van erratische stemmingen, onbestemde maar existentiële twijfels en onjuiste maar onontkoombare indrukken, zonder enig centrum of wezenskern. Zodat zijn steeds vaker herhaalde uitspraak "I am I", die door zijn tautologische cirkelvormigheid toch al een slang is die in zijn eigen staart bijt, steeds nadrukkelijker een pijnlijk raadsel aangeeft. Ook al lijkt hij aan het slot van dit boek dit pijnlijke raadsel in al zijn pijnlijkheid te accepteren. Althans voorlopig, want alles is voorlopig in dit ongelofelijke boek.

Ik werd behoorlijk meegesleept door de vele epifanieën in "Wolf Solent", zowel de uitbundig jubelende als de meer zwartgallige vol reflecties over het ongrijpbare kwaad of over de tragiek van het bestaan. Ook de Dostojevskiaanse vertwijfeling van de hoofdpersoon vond ik heel fascinerend en indrukwekkend. Ik zou Powys - met een term van Brakman- een "ervaringsgenie" willen noemen: hij beschrijft immers heel overtuigend een hoofdpersoon die alles in de wereld ervaart als peilloos veelvormig raadsel, en die alle aspecten van deze raadsels gretig wil indrinken. Sommige filosofen denken dat de pre- moderne mens nog de verbijstering kende over het vele onbekende en onverklaarbare in de wereld, en dat mythen vorm gaven aan deze verbijstering over de wereld. Misschien geeft Wolf Solents persoonlijke mythologie wel een soortgelijke vorm aan een soortgelijke verbijstering. Misschien is ook Powys zelf bij uitstek pre- modern, omdat hij zich waagt in de ongrijpbare werelden die vooraf gaan aan onze ratio en onze wetenschappelijke wereldverklaringen. In elk geval maakte hij een heel vreemd boek over een wel heel vreemde wereld, die toch ook de onze is. Die vreemdheid zet hij zelfs extra kracht bij met zijn naar mijn smaak fenomenale stijl en vorm. En ik vond het heerlijk om mij ruim zeshonderd bladzijden lang te kunnen onderdompelen in die zo vreemde wereld, en in alle jubel en vertwijfeling die deze wereld oproept.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in an early 20th century England, in the West Country, a man in his mid-30s returns to his rural county after 15 years in London, followed shortly by his domineering mother (whom he seems not to resent). In constant throes of spiritual crisis, he breaks free enough to fall in love with two women the first week, one of whom he marries, the other he strings along for 600 pages. The combined emotional crises of several villages which revolve around infidelity, incest, uncertain parentage and so on, cause Wolf (the title character) to find that his attempts not to mirror the behavior of his deceased father are increasingly unavailing.
On top of all this, his rhapsodies about the Dorset flora and landscape render the countryside almost a character of its own. This is my second Powys and it is comparable to Maiden Castle in terms of its obsessive sense of place and emotionally volatile (slightly inexplicably so) characters.

[zunggg · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a slog. Interesting at first to read something so clearly influential to writers I hate, like Lawrence, and love, like Murdoch. The weird self-obsession of Wolf, and the intensity with which Powys delves into it, starts out fun but by half way, all the fun is gone (to quote Curious George). It turns into a Lawrencian mope-a-long in the company of a total drip. On the other hand you have a cast of real eccentrics, the satanic Squire Urquhart and the self-doubting vicar Tilly-Valley being typically Murdochian types. In the end though, I was completely unable to stomach another cup of tea, pointless self-reflective walk in the country, or obscure reference to someone’s “life illusion” or “mythology”.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very unusual book, gorgeous on language, light on plot, and deeply concerned with the internal life of the narrator. It is also remarkably funny when introducing its population of eccentrics. As the book's humor declined and the character interactions intensified, however, I found the book somewhat less interesting. Powys is a master at description and internal monologues, but I found the book's dialogue often stilted and its characters reacting in ways I found uncompelling or unrealistic.

Still an odd, open-minded, and worthwhile book, with a fascinating world-frame.