The Little Company

by Eleanor Dark

It is 1941 and the storm clouds of war gather over Australia. In the mountains outside Sydney the Massey family are reunited by their father's death. Gilbert is a successful novelist, struggling with writer's block in middle age. A socialist and intellect

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Australia, Historical Fiction, 20th Century

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 4, 1945

About the author

Eleanor Dark (1901 - 1985) was an Australian author, most known for her historical novel The Timeless Land (1941), which became a bestseller in Australia and the USA.

Dark was born on 26 August 1901 at Croydon, Sydney, second of three children of Sydney-born parents Dowell O’Reilly, schoolteacher and author, and his wife Eleanor Grace, née McCulloch, who died in 1914 after an unhappy marriage and a period of ill health. Small, dark and elfin, 'Pixie', as she was known to her family, attended several private schools before boarding at Redlands, Neutral Bay, from 1916 to 1920.

Although Pixie had written verse from the age of 7, as the family’s finances grew tighter her hopes of university and a writing career faded. After attending Stott & Hoare’s Business College, she worked as a stenographer for a firm of solicitors, Makinson, Plunkett & d’Apice, for eighteen months. She married Eric Payten Dark, a medical practitioner and a widower with an infant son, John, on 1 February 1922 at St Matthias’s Church of England, Paddington. Eric and Eleanor shared many interests: literature, history, tennis, bushwalking, mountain-climbing and gardening. Next year they moved to Katoomba. In the relative isolation of the Blue Mountains she resumed writing. Eric enthusiastically encouraged her. They were absorbed in each other; John moved back and forth between them and his mother’s family and later boarded at Sydney Grammar School, visiting the Darks for occasional weekends. Their son Michael was born in 1929; Eleanor was a devoted mother to him.

Dark used the pseudonyms 'P. O’R.' and 'Patricia O’Rane' for the verse which she wrote in the 1920s and early 1930s. It was published in Australia by journals including the Triad, Bulletin and Woman’s Mirror, but was not very significant. Her short stories were also published in these journals and in Motoring News, Home and Ink.

She wrote her ten novels between the 1930s and 1950s. Seven had contemporary themes, often utilising the techniques of modernism, exploring contemporary relationships and politics. Her other three novels - beginning with The Timeless Land - formed an historical trilogy and were her most popular and best-selling works.

Both Eleanor and Eric were openly leftist in their views throughout a period when Australia was increasingly conservative. They were monitored by the government during the "Red scare" of the 1940s and 1950s, for fear they were members of the Communist Party (they weren't).

Dark largely abandoned writing after 1960. Although she worked on manuscript novels and plays, she lost interest due to a combination of low sales and the changing tastes of the public. In the late 1970s, Dark was awarded an Order of Australia medal, and her books were gradually republished in the 1980s as a new wave of artists and feminists discovered her writings. By this time, she was ill, and died in 1985 in hospital.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
Fascinating novel by the Australian writer Eleanor Dark. It is set in the Second World War covering 1941 to 1944 and focuses on the Massey family. They live between Sydney and a nearby town in the Blue Mountains. The main characters are Gilbert Massey, a middle-aged writer, socialist, rather boring: his wife Phyllis, conservative, religious and profoundly disturbed by her husband’s left wing views. Gilbert’s sister Marty is also a writer with a sharp wit, also left of centre, her husband Richard is older and a liberal. Gilbert’s brother Nick is a Marxist and member of the Australian Communist Party. Victoria and Prue are Gilbert and Phyllis’s daughters.
This, although it is a family drama, is also serious fiction written in wartime and the characters reflect the tensions of those who don’t know who will be victorious. It also reflects the sudden change in the political landscape when the Soviet Union joined the Allies. The novel is also a complex analysis of how intellectuals of the 30s and 40s responded to the changing political landscape. This is partly also biographical as Dark and her husband were going on the same journey. The debates are interesting as Nick takes the party line and the others debate around his viewpoint. The title comes from the Song of Roland and the last stand of two of Charlemagne’s knights, reflecting the imminent threat to Australia from Japan. Every character is complex and well-drawn. It is interesting that Dark pours much of her ways of thinking, beliefs and challenges into the central male character Gilbert and all of the conservative and traditionalist beliefs into his wife, who descends into mental illness. The reader does feel an instinctive sympathy for Gilbert, but it is clear that he can only be who he is because of the support of his wife. The complexity revolves around the frailty and uncertainty of social relationships.
There are interesting reflections on the nature of writing, the meaning of war, shifting perspectives in the country, critiques of capitalism and militarism and struggles for meaning. Dark does not forget her own feminism and Gilbert daydreams the following:
“Some disembodied voice of composite womanhood said to him dryly: In the past we have been grateful for the shelter of your strong right arm against tigers, spears, swords. But can you shield us from the weapons of your scientific warfare – this precious ultimate bloom of your masculine inventiveness? Forgive us if we feel that our children now need a more reliable guardianship – our own”.
This is as radical as any 1960s feminist, written in the 1940s. Dark believed that one of the things she had to do in bleak times was to continue writing and this is the result. A very interesting and thought provoking novel: not an easy read and much subtler and more complex than it initially appears.

[Elena Sala · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE LITTLE COMPANY (1945), written by Australian writer Eleanor Dark, is set in Sydney (and the mountains outside Sydney) during WW2. It is a remarkable novel which combines the moving story of the Massey family with sharp analysis of war and politics.

WW2 is not simply the background of the story. The Pacific war is relentlessly creeping towards Australia and everyone feels that Australian defences are too weak to deal with a Japanese invasion. The menace of a world at war pervades the whole story: the characters read the news about the Japanese advance into Malaya, the fall of Singapore, the Japanese landings in New Guinea, the bombings of Port Moresby, the terrifying submarine raid in Sydney and already feel the implacable impact of a war that seems to loom in the horizon.

The story is centered on the Massey family. Gilbert Massey is a writer affected by writer's block. He feels the inadequacy and futility of writing in times of war, with the threat of invasion coming closer to home every day. He is unhappily married to Phyllis, a religious, righteous woman, determined to become a martyr. Phyllis cares nothing for culture though she thinks "it was right and proper" to support her husband in his endeavors. She's getting impatient, it's been several years since he published his last book. They had two daughters and one son, and the reader soon wonders how they managed to stick together for so long, since they're clearly incompatible in every possible way.

THE LITTLE COMPANY is a novel with many great plots which explore the family's past as well as the present. There are engrossing conversations about writing, art, politics and war. I was delighted with the descriptions of Sydney in the 1930s and during WW2.

This book was published long ago by Virago Modern Classics, so it should appeal to Virago enthusiasts. Fortunately, it's published by Allen & Unwin now, and no longer out of print. I will be reading more Eleanor Dark in the future; this novel was such an unexpected and absorbing surprise.

[Julian Leatherdale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, this is my first Eleanor Dark and it is a revelation. Her writing style is beautiful and dense, and so rigorous it is able to capture the most subtle and indeterminate of psychological states. The writing is never hurried; many scenes are lengthy, discursive conversations about writing and politics or finely observed interactions between characters and there is much internal examination as well. And yet there never a dull moment. These interrogations of politics, especially of communism and nationalism, have an urgency and vividness that make this book still feel modern.

Set in wartime Sydney and Katoomba in the Blue Mountains during WWII (1941-42), The Little Company has a small cast: the literary-political Massey family and their circle. Gilbert Massey (a WWI veteran who marries hastily) and his sister Marty (happily married to a liberal) are both left-wing novelists while their brother Nick is a member of the Australian Communist Party. This provides a platform for heated debate about politics and responses to the war, particularly Russia's changing role from despised neutrality to the bulwark against Nazi world conquest.

The Little Company of the title is drawn from a verse in the Song of Roland about the enemy Saracens encircling: 'great are the hosts of that strange people; we have here but a little company'. While it expresses the fears of wartime Australia faced with invasion, it also describes the besieged status of the enclave of progressive writers in Australia in the 1930s and 1940s. This novel was written during the war and published in 1945. By the 1950s the Darks would be driven out of the Blue Mountains for their beliefs and Eleanor would struggle with her writing during the Cold War.

Gilbert's conservative, martyred wife Phyllis is a deeply pathetic figure, out of step with his intellectual family. Despite not sharing his political values, she is alarmed at her husband's ongoing writer's block. Gilbert is haunted by youthful memories of his writing mentor, a socialist journalist Scott Laughlin whose wife leaves him for another man. Gilbert meets the daughter of this adulterous union, the troubled figure of Elsa Kay.

There are superb passages about the challenges and joys of writing practice that rang true for me as a writer. The overall movement of the plot is towards Gilbert's ability to find a reason to write again! Dark believes that fiction is inevitably political and that fictional characters can only be understood in their social relationships (not as isolated players motivated by inner lives). The Little Company both demonstrates this belief and explicitly argues for it.

The portrait of the central character Gilbert Massey is far from uncritical. There is much here about confronting failure (as a husband, father and writer) and the writing is tough-minded and unsentimental. But there is also acerbic humour and lovely evocations of place, especially the Mountains bush land.

I now join the ranks of those who have always admired Dark and look forward to reading more of her work.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Significantly better than I expected, and at times frankly brilliant. Felt rather depressingly relevant too.

Nice more lengthy review here, if you are curious:

https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/12/31/t...

[Abbey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! Eleanor Dark's writing is absolutely beautiful to read, densely packed with meaning but also able to convey simple sketches of her characters' feelings, personalities, and environments. I loved the reflections on writing, life, and making things that matter in the complex and brutal world of World War Two, ideas which remain relevant many decades later. Her characters are flawed, deeply thought through, and elegantly drawn, and it was fascinating to read the depth of their thoughts as they shifted and interacted with other characters.

I can't wait to read more of her work, and I would love to see her enter mainstream Australian literature again! Highly recommend if you feel like some introspection!

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though it's been reported internationally some readers may not know about Australia's bushfire crisis. Fires in NSW have been burning for weeks, and in the last couple of days here in Victoria, vast swathes of the state are on fire as large out-of-control fires join up with each other to form mega fires with a massive fire front. Many of us here in not-quite-completely-safe Melbourne have spent the past 48 hours in a state of anxiety: obsessively checking the news on radio, TV and the Twitternet; occasionally weeping over the destruction of well-loved small towns; vacillating over whether or when it might be appropriate to distract ourselves from the almost unbearable stress; and worrying about what catastrophe might happen next.

In The Little Company Eleanor Dark has captured this sense of background anxiety about a different kind of existential threat: the fear of military defeat in Australia. The novel was published in 1945, but the characters are responding to the advance of the Japanese army into Malaya (December 1941-January 1942); the fall of Singapore (February 1942), the submarine raid on Sydney Harbour (May-June 1942). While war in Europe seemed no closer to an end, the war in the Pacific was coming ever closer to home.

During these early days of November his first waking thoughts were always of the morning headlines, his breakfast a tasteless something which he swallowed mechanically while his mind fastened on El Alamein and Stalingrad. Yet though this overwhelming world-worry claimed priority over all lesser worries, the lesser worries were there. (p.264)

However, as Drusilla Modjeska writes in the Introduction, The Little Company is less concerned with the fact of war than with the meaning of war. It is there every day in its mundane impacts: studying their newly-acquired ration books, writing letters to the papers, taking sides on trivial domestic issues, growing vegetables, practising for air-raids, grumbling, quarrelling, laughing, filling the war loans, going to the movies—but it's the political, ethical, personal questions [which] are critical. By focussing on the conflicting experiences and responses of one family and its circle, Dark ensures that the problems posed in the text are political and intellectual.

The central character is a successful middle-aged author called Gilbert Massey, trapped in an unsuitable marriage with Phyllis, a woman who liked small communities, small problems, small issues, small scandals and small talk. All the members of his family and circle are in different positions on the political spectrum, ranging from his stolidly conservative wife to his brother Nick who is a member of the Communist Party and sees everything through the prism of Marxist dialectics. His sister Marty, also a writer, is married to a liberal intellectual.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/12/31/t...

[Hester · Rating 2 out of 5]

Promised more than it delivered.

A family of middle class Australians living through WW2 without much personal jeopardy and having unlikely conversations around philosophy and other abstractions. All rather grandiose and I couldn't help feeling it was a way of avoiding what was happening in front of their faces.

Meanwhile the main story, that of a marriage falling apart, takes a predictable course. The husband, a novelist, business owner and landlord has moved politically to the left and away from his conservative, religious nd traditional wife. She is portrayed as a stupid, needy hysteric irrational and unimaginative while her , oh so clever, husband is all logic and intellect. Please! The whole thing lapses into a cliched melodrama all the while ignoring the terrible damage these two antagonists are inflicting on their children, one whom is quite the little parent ( clue here, it's not the boy) and another....well, no plot spoilers but even I could see it coming .I had no sympathy for any of them. I could see how the, author was critiquing the patriarchy , orthodoxy and class system but she went about it in such a prejudicial way I was, simply irritated.

I simply dislike novels about ideas, or novels with clear political agendas.....Maybe that's it.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmmm ... a lot of dense, slow-down-or-you-will-miss-it writing; some great characters (like Gilbert), some very shallow ones (like Pete); and some interesting perspectives on the war, on inequality that I would like to have read more about (Sarah Dodd). I loved Lantana Lane but The Little Company not as much.

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a sort of odd book. It's another Virago Modern Classic, set in Australia in 1941, and published in 1945. Because of that (or, I don't know, because that is what the author cared about, I guess) it is a novel of ideas, dragged down by its ideas. The main character is an author named Gilbert Massey. He's a World War One vet, author and father of three who, at the time the story starts feels weighted down by the stress of the world - he's disgusted by how it's falling apart, how complacent everyone seems, and how little the war has learned since 1919. His malaise has caused him to have years of writer's block, and to dabble in Socialism, a notion in which he is encouraged by his sister and brother (one a leftist, one a radical). Furthermore, his marriage to the uninspired Phyllis has become a shell. He questions everything, she purposely lives with her head in the sand and they have grown further and further apart.

I can't say that I loved this book. I think Dark is an excellent writer, and I became very interested in the personal lives of the characters especially Gilbert's daughter Prue (falling in love with an American serviceman while her parent's empty marriage disintegrates) and his sister Marty (writing a novel of ideas and living with her Liberal - i.e. more moderate - husband). I couldn't get enough of Phyllis - she is depicted as both tragic and monstrously small minded. An absolutely accurate portrait of a limited kind of woman who certainly still exists.

The characters were fascinating - it was the ideas that wore me down. It was just so dreary and obvious, and I found myself skimming sections that talked about how bad the world was and how perhaps Socialism was the answer. I guess that Dark was herself left-leaning, and suffered the consequences, and I understand that things looked particularly grim at the time she wrote the book. But it stinks of the worst of heavy-handed propagandist fiction - I wanted to get back to the family that had been stunted emotionally by its conventionality. In fact, Dark makes her point through her characters - she doesn't need the boring political passages to reinforce her ideas. It would have been a more engaging and cleverer book without them.

It was pretty cool to read about Australia's home front though. I do enjoy these obscure Virago books for the snapshot of life ago, if nothing else!

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the evocation of 1930s Sydney.

[Vireya]

After 100 pages I still hadn't got the characters straight and worked out exactly how they were related to each other. Book was due back at the library so I returned it unfinished.