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Gentlemen, I Address You Privately
Kay Boyle has long felt an urgent need to rewrite this early novel (1933) and give it a "second life." In August 1990, after two year of revision and clarifying the themes she felt were obscured by her youthful tendencies to overwrite, she read the final typescript and gave it her blessing.
This forceful story involves an English priest, Munday, defrocked for playing Poeme de l'Exstase during collection, who exiles himself to Normandy's wild countryside. Here he befriends the Cockney sailor, Ayton, a vagabond as shifty as the winds who was wanted for theft, deserted his ship, and went into hiding. Munday and Ayton become involved in an erotic relationship, causing Munday to question his whole identity.
Meanwhile, others enter the picture: a pair of squatters, brute Quespelle and his wife Leonie, followed by three Alsatian women of questionable virtue. In the end, Ayton shows his true colors and Munday is left with a revelation.
This forceful story involves an English priest, Munday, defrocked for playing Poeme de l'Exstase during collection, who exiles himself to Normandy's wild countryside. Here he befriends the Cockney sailor, Ayton, a vagabond as shifty as the winds who was wanted for theft, deserted his ship, and went into hiding. Munday and Ayton become involved in an erotic relationship, causing Munday to question his whole identity.
Meanwhile, others enter the picture: a pair of squatters, brute Quespelle and his wife Leonie, followed by three Alsatian women of questionable virtue. In the end, Ayton shows his true colors and Munday is left with a revelation.
227 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1991
49 people want to read
About the author
Kay Boyle
98 books43 followersKay Boyle was a writer of the Lost Generation.
Early years
The granddaughter of a publisher, Kay Boyle was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and grew up in several cities but principally in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her father, Howard Peterson Boyle, was a lawyer, but her greatest influence came from her mother, Katherine Evans, a literary and social activist who believed that the wealthy had an obligation to help the less well off. In later years Kay Boyle championed integration and civil rights. She also advocated banning nuclear weapons, and American withdrawal from the Vietnam War.
Boyle was educated at the exclusive Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, then studied architecture at the Ohio Mechanics Institute in Cincinnati. Interested in the arts, she studied violin at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music before settling in New York City in 1922 where she found work as a writer/editor with a small magazine.
Marriages and family life
That same year, she met and married a French exchange student, Richard Brault, and they moved to France in 1923. This resulted in her staying in Europe for the better part of the next twenty years. Separated from her husband, she formed a relationship with magazine editor Ernest Walsh, with whom she had a daughter (born after Walsh had died of tuberculosis).
In 1928 she met Laurence Vail, who was then married to Peggy Guggenheim. Boyle and Vail lived together between 1929 until 1932 when, following their divorces, they married. With Vail, she had three more children.
During her years in France, Boyle was associated with several innovative literary magazines and made friends with many of the writers and artists living in Paris around Montparnasse. Among her friends were Harry and Caresse Crosby who owned the Black Sun Press and published her first work of fiction, a collection titled Short Stories. They became such good friends that in 1928 Harry Crosby cashed in some stock dividends to help Boyle pay for an abortion. Other friends included Eugene and Maria Jolas. Kay Boyle also wrote for transition, one of the preeminent literary publications of the day. A poet as well as a novelist, her early writings often reflected her lifelong search for true love as well as her interest in the power relationships between men and women. Kay Boyle's short stories won two O. Henry Awards.
In 1936, she wrote a novel titled Death of a Man, an attack on the growing threat of Nazism, but at that time, no one in America was listening. In 1943, following her divorce from Laurence Vail, she married Baron Joseph von Franckenstein with whom she had two children. After having lived in France, Austria, England, and in Germany after World War II, Boyle returned to the United States.
McCarthyism, later life
In the States, Boyle and her husband were victims of early 1950s McCarthyism. Her husband was dismissed by Roy Cohn from his post in the Public Affairs Division of the U.S. State Department, and Boyle lost her position as foreign correspondent for The New Yorker, a post she had held for six years. She was blacklisted by most of the major magazines. During this period, her life and writing became increasingly political.
In the early 1960s, Boyle and her husband lived in Rowayton, Connecticut, where he taught at a private girls' school. He was then rehired by the State Department and posted to Iran, but died shortly thereafter in 1963.
Boyle was a writer in residence at the New York City Writer's Conference at Wagner College in 1962. In 1963, she accepted a creative writing position on the faculty of San Francisco State College, where she remained until 1979. During this period she became heavily involved in political activism. She traveled to Cambodia in 1966 as part of the "Americans Want to Know" fact-seeking mission. She participated in numerous protests, and in 1967 was arrested twice and imprisoned. In 1968, she signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge,
Early years
The granddaughter of a publisher, Kay Boyle was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and grew up in several cities but principally in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her father, Howard Peterson Boyle, was a lawyer, but her greatest influence came from her mother, Katherine Evans, a literary and social activist who believed that the wealthy had an obligation to help the less well off. In later years Kay Boyle championed integration and civil rights. She also advocated banning nuclear weapons, and American withdrawal from the Vietnam War.
Boyle was educated at the exclusive Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, then studied architecture at the Ohio Mechanics Institute in Cincinnati. Interested in the arts, she studied violin at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music before settling in New York City in 1922 where she found work as a writer/editor with a small magazine.
Marriages and family life
That same year, she met and married a French exchange student, Richard Brault, and they moved to France in 1923. This resulted in her staying in Europe for the better part of the next twenty years. Separated from her husband, she formed a relationship with magazine editor Ernest Walsh, with whom she had a daughter (born after Walsh had died of tuberculosis).
In 1928 she met Laurence Vail, who was then married to Peggy Guggenheim. Boyle and Vail lived together between 1929 until 1932 when, following their divorces, they married. With Vail, she had three more children.
During her years in France, Boyle was associated with several innovative literary magazines and made friends with many of the writers and artists living in Paris around Montparnasse. Among her friends were Harry and Caresse Crosby who owned the Black Sun Press and published her first work of fiction, a collection titled Short Stories. They became such good friends that in 1928 Harry Crosby cashed in some stock dividends to help Boyle pay for an abortion. Other friends included Eugene and Maria Jolas. Kay Boyle also wrote for transition, one of the preeminent literary publications of the day. A poet as well as a novelist, her early writings often reflected her lifelong search for true love as well as her interest in the power relationships between men and women. Kay Boyle's short stories won two O. Henry Awards.
In 1936, she wrote a novel titled Death of a Man, an attack on the growing threat of Nazism, but at that time, no one in America was listening. In 1943, following her divorce from Laurence Vail, she married Baron Joseph von Franckenstein with whom she had two children. After having lived in France, Austria, England, and in Germany after World War II, Boyle returned to the United States.
McCarthyism, later life
In the States, Boyle and her husband were victims of early 1950s McCarthyism. Her husband was dismissed by Roy Cohn from his post in the Public Affairs Division of the U.S. State Department, and Boyle lost her position as foreign correspondent for The New Yorker, a post she had held for six years. She was blacklisted by most of the major magazines. During this period, her life and writing became increasingly political.
In the early 1960s, Boyle and her husband lived in Rowayton, Connecticut, where he taught at a private girls' school. He was then rehired by the State Department and posted to Iran, but died shortly thereafter in 1963.
Boyle was a writer in residence at the New York City Writer's Conference at Wagner College in 1962. In 1963, she accepted a creative writing position on the faculty of San Francisco State College, where she remained until 1979. During this period she became heavily involved in political activism. She traveled to Cambodia in 1966 as part of the "Americans Want to Know" fact-seeking mission. She participated in numerous protests, and in 1967 was arrested twice and imprisoned. In 1968, she signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge,
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 24, 2018
Munday was an English priest; defrocked, but not for anything as sordid as Zola's Father Mouret. One gets the feeling, though, that Munday's superiors were already uncertain about him when he sat down at the piano during the collection at Mass and began to play Le Poème de l'extase. And that was that.
Munday exiles himself to Normandy where he gives the odd piano lesson until he meets Ayton, a Cockney sailor. Nothing explicit is told, yet the two discuss the authorship of The Golden Bough before the lights go out. But let's not dwell on that, since the author doesn't.
Ayton, a deserter and thief, is wanted by the authorities, so off the two go, into the countryside, where they meet a small cast of characters: Quespelle and his wife, Leonie, squatters on a sizable estate; Rochereau, a cynical newspaper publisher; and three Alsatian girls who share each other's pleasures.
But that's enough plot. The brilliance of this book - and it is brilliant - is the way Boyle subtly reveals character. In particular, I speak of Quespelle and Leonie, husband and wife. This is Feminism before it became a movement.
Hey, you no doubt want to say right now, if this is so good how come no one's ever heard of it? (Seven GR ratings and, well, this will be the first review.) The short answer is: I don't know. Boyle was celebrated enough as a member of The Lost Generation but she's certainly faded from view. That's a pity. Other writers have an oblique style, yes, but I find Boyle's method of nuance unique. I'm doing my small part to get everyone, anyone, to give her a try.
There are naysayers. The Kirkus Review, in an extremely short review of this book, dwelt on the homosexual themes more than, frankly, the author did. Maybe their delicate sensitivities were offended. Enough so that they concluded this was "an unpleasant and unnecessary story." Maybe they read an earlier version. And they might have.
This was Boyle's second novel, first published in 1931. But something about it bothered Boyle. So, in 1988 she began a revision, hoping to clarify themes she felt were obscured by her youthful tendency to overwrite, her editor said. She gave her blessing to this edition two years later, just two years before her death at 90.
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
While I read this, millions on both sides of the pond were enraptured with the latest Royal Wedding. I passed, still being pissed about the Stamp Act. I looked up only after reading this:
"What have you to do with the British? . . . In an Englishman a soul does not grow of itself. . . . Sometimes he acquires one, but it is artificial, like an orchid made to bloom. Have you a friend without a soul then?"
And, again, this:
"Ah, Ireland is beautiful," (Ayton) said. "Dark and silent. I was a long time there. Ireland was my friend."
Munday thought of it on the other side of the water, a black jewel shining like a miner's lamp on England's brow.
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
I was in a used bookstore in Cooperstown, NY, and I was holding two books by Boyle in my hands, firmly but now regrettably determined to purchase only one. I picked this one, in large part because of the title. Gentlemen, I Address You Privately. Only at home did I see the opening epigram, attributed to Ernest Walsh:
Gentlemen, I address you privately
and no woman is within hearing.
So, I asked myself, who the hell is Ernest Walsh?
Walsh published the stars of The Lost Generation in a heralded magazine, This Quarter. His own poetry was mostly dismissed. Boyle met him in Paris when she left her first husband, an act that became habitual with her. She became his lover and had a child by him. Walsh had tuberculosis and died before his child was born. Apparently Boyle thought more of his writing than others.
In any event, the title might seem odder in meaning than style if one dwells only on the events related or Munday's point of view. But I think the title is meant to direct our attention to Leonie, who is the real hero/heroine of this novel. She understands perfectly what is not told to her. She has married poorly, yet she still makes choices. Leonie is not a victim.
Munday exiles himself to Normandy where he gives the odd piano lesson until he meets Ayton, a Cockney sailor. Nothing explicit is told, yet the two discuss the authorship of The Golden Bough before the lights go out. But let's not dwell on that, since the author doesn't.
Ayton, a deserter and thief, is wanted by the authorities, so off the two go, into the countryside, where they meet a small cast of characters: Quespelle and his wife, Leonie, squatters on a sizable estate; Rochereau, a cynical newspaper publisher; and three Alsatian girls who share each other's pleasures.
But that's enough plot. The brilliance of this book - and it is brilliant - is the way Boyle subtly reveals character. In particular, I speak of Quespelle and Leonie, husband and wife. This is Feminism before it became a movement.
Hey, you no doubt want to say right now, if this is so good how come no one's ever heard of it? (Seven GR ratings and, well, this will be the first review.) The short answer is: I don't know. Boyle was celebrated enough as a member of The Lost Generation but she's certainly faded from view. That's a pity. Other writers have an oblique style, yes, but I find Boyle's method of nuance unique. I'm doing my small part to get everyone, anyone, to give her a try.
There are naysayers. The Kirkus Review, in an extremely short review of this book, dwelt on the homosexual themes more than, frankly, the author did. Maybe their delicate sensitivities were offended. Enough so that they concluded this was "an unpleasant and unnecessary story." Maybe they read an earlier version. And they might have.
This was Boyle's second novel, first published in 1931. But something about it bothered Boyle. So, in 1988 she began a revision, hoping to clarify themes she felt were obscured by her youthful tendency to overwrite, her editor said. She gave her blessing to this edition two years later, just two years before her death at 90.
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
While I read this, millions on both sides of the pond were enraptured with the latest Royal Wedding. I passed, still being pissed about the Stamp Act. I looked up only after reading this:
"What have you to do with the British? . . . In an Englishman a soul does not grow of itself. . . . Sometimes he acquires one, but it is artificial, like an orchid made to bloom. Have you a friend without a soul then?"
And, again, this:
"Ah, Ireland is beautiful," (Ayton) said. "Dark and silent. I was a long time there. Ireland was my friend."
Munday thought of it on the other side of the water, a black jewel shining like a miner's lamp on England's brow.
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
I was in a used bookstore in Cooperstown, NY, and I was holding two books by Boyle in my hands, firmly but now regrettably determined to purchase only one. I picked this one, in large part because of the title. Gentlemen, I Address You Privately. Only at home did I see the opening epigram, attributed to Ernest Walsh:
Gentlemen, I address you privately
and no woman is within hearing.
So, I asked myself, who the hell is Ernest Walsh?
Walsh published the stars of The Lost Generation in a heralded magazine, This Quarter. His own poetry was mostly dismissed. Boyle met him in Paris when she left her first husband, an act that became habitual with her. She became his lover and had a child by him. Walsh had tuberculosis and died before his child was born. Apparently Boyle thought more of his writing than others.
In any event, the title might seem odder in meaning than style if one dwells only on the events related or Munday's point of view. But I think the title is meant to direct our attention to Leonie, who is the real hero/heroine of this novel. She understands perfectly what is not told to her. She has married poorly, yet she still makes choices. Leonie is not a victim.
March 4, 2019
Tony's review is the first of this book with text. Mine will be only the second, which seems a shame. Read his review before mine. His explains the title and is more comprehensive, which leaves me with the feeling that I can just ramble.
For some reason, I kept replacing the word ‘address’ in the title with the word ‘salute.’ This gave me the false feeling that at some point the story would concern military men and war, though gendarmes are checking “papers.” And while Ayton, the catalyst for the events, was a sailor, he could’ve been anything and probably has been. I usually have a problem with his type of character, that is, someone just about everyone ‘falls’ for and makes excuses for, but I was able to go with it this time. That has a lot to do with Boyle’s prose (character development, setting and dialogue included) and it’s what you hang on to from the beginning as a storm crashes and you’re left to fend for yourself. Eventually, as the seasons spool out, you see the ending coming, though you hope it’s not the case, especially for two of the characters, one you now know will be okay and the other who still may have a long way to go.
*
Note to Tony: Not one single person coughs.
*
My copy of the book has a different cover https://www.bolerium.com/pages/books/... than the one above, though I opted not to add it to Goodreads.
For some reason, I kept replacing the word ‘address’ in the title with the word ‘salute.’ This gave me the false feeling that at some point the story would concern military men and war, though gendarmes are checking “papers.” And while Ayton, the catalyst for the events, was a sailor, he could’ve been anything and probably has been. I usually have a problem with his type of character, that is, someone just about everyone ‘falls’ for and makes excuses for, but I was able to go with it this time. That has a lot to do with Boyle’s prose (character development, setting and dialogue included) and it’s what you hang on to from the beginning as a storm crashes and you’re left to fend for yourself. Eventually, as the seasons spool out, you see the ending coming, though you hope it’s not the case, especially for two of the characters, one you now know will be okay and the other who still may have a long way to go.
*
Note to Tony: Not one single person coughs.
*
My copy of the book has a different cover https://www.bolerium.com/pages/books/... than the one above, though I opted not to add it to Goodreads.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews