God's Eyes a-twinkle: An Anthology of the Stories of T.F.Powys

by T.F. Powys

God's Eyes A-Twinkle offers a conspectus of thirty eight short stories by T. F. Powys drawn from the following Bottle's Path ; No Painted Plumage ; Captain Patch ; The House with the Echo ; The White Paternoster ; The Left Leg .

The stories included A Loud Lie ; Darkness and Nathaniel ; Only the Devil ; The Seaweed and the Cuckoo-Clock ; Jesus' Walk ; The Key of the Field ; I Came as a Bride ; The Gong ; The White Weathercock ; When Thou wast Naked ; Charlotte Bennett ; John Pardy and the Waves ; Mr Pim and the Holy Crumb ; King Duck ; The Bucket and the Rope ; The Devil ; The Only Penitent ; The White Paternoster ; The Stone and Mr Thomas ; My Money ; Christ in the Cupboard ; Archdeacon Truggin ; The Left Leg ; A Christmas Gift ; The Candle and the Slow-Worm ; The Lonely Lady ; The Rival Pastors ; The Golden Gates ; The Dog and the Lantern ; Captain Patch ; No Room ; The Dewpond ; Bottle's Path ; Gold ; In Dull Devonshire ; Lie The Down, Oddity! ; John Told and the Worm ; The Corpse and the Flea .

Charles Prentice, who had been T. F. Powys' editor, concludes his preface in a way that would be difficult to better, 'They (the stories) should all be read slowly. Powys is not a literalist; his words convey more than their face value. These stories treat of the general and unalterable, with subtlety of thought and feeling, and with simplicity of presentation. Wisdom and humour are embedded in them. They reveal the infinite mystery, the fluid inconsistencies of life. They are delicate, wiry and human. 'God's eyes' are 'a-twinkle'. But the main business is the incalculable doings of that oddity Man.'

In addition to God's Eyes A-Twinkle , Faber Finds are reissuing the following T. F. Powys Mr Tasker's Gods ; Mark Only ; Fables ; Mockery Gap ; Innocent Birds .

454 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1947

About the author

Theodore Francis Powys, published as T. F. Powys, was born in Shirley, Derbyshire, the son of the Reverend Charles Francis Powys (1843–1923), vicar of Montacute, Somerset, for 32 years, and Mary Cowper Johnson, grand-daughter of Dr John Johnson, cousin and close friend of the poet William Cowper. He was one of eleven talented siblings, including the novelist John Cowper Powys (1872–1963) and the novelist and essayist Llewelyn Powys (1884–1939).
A sensitive child, Powys was not happy in school and left when he was 15 to become an apprentice on a farm in Suffolk. Later he had his own farm in Suffolk, but he was not successful and returned to Dorset in 1901 with plans to be a writer. Then, in 1905, he married Violet Dodd. They had two sons and later adopted a daughter. From 1904 until 1940 Theodore Powys lived in East Chaldon but then moved to Mappowder because of the war.
During the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), Powys was one of several UK writers who campaigned for aid to be sent to the Republican side.
Powys was deeply, if unconventionally, religious; the Bible was a major influence, and he had a special affinity with writers of the 17th and 18th centuries, including John Bunyan, Miguel de Cervantes, Jeremy Taylor, Jonathan Swift, and Henry Fielding. Among more recent writers, he admired Thomas Hardy, Sigmund Freud, and Friedrich Nietzsche.
He died on 27 November 1953 in Mappowder, Dorset, where he was buried. [from wikipedia, adapted]

Reviews

[Richard S · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a great fondness for short stories, Henry James is the great master, followed closely by Maupassant, Chekov and Turgenev, and then there are those like O'Connor just below that, and isolated ones that sometimes rise to join the greatest, like Melville's "Bartleby".

T.F. Powys doesn't really write short stories though, they are probably better described as "poetic fables," of a highly unique and fascinating type about an imaginary but highly realistic and living Dorset. His stories have a moral aspect, occasionally a bit too didactic, but more frequently ambiguous and complex. Like James, his work has a substantial "impressionistic" effect, even if his words are not quite as literary or refined, he is going for a "sense" or "feeling" rather than an "accurate picture". Like Maupassant, he frequently heads for the darkness, there is much evil here (mostly greed and lust), the "White Paternoster" possibly one of the most terrifying stories I've read with its pure, simple evil. And then, like the Russian writers he is highly localized, he writes about Dorset like they write about Russia. The dialect, the landscape, the society.

There is a high consistency and quality of impression that runs through the stories, a collection of T.F. Powys' work over his lifetime. Except for a couple of the most blatantly didactic stories, with little content except their moral message (thankfully just a couple of these), most of the stories are delightfully atmospheric and ambiguous. His themes against greed and lust run throughout. This is not Hardy's Dorset, but at times I was left wondering which might be the more accurate depiction.

"When Thou Wast Naked" is possibly the best of them - playing with the insanity of a farmer and delusions, but also commenting on society. The harshest and coldest of the stories, "The Stone and Mr. Thomas", which upset me the most, rivals some of the bleakest modern works. There is a focus on the religious element, and many of the characters are pastors, but many are "fallen" or incompetent, or ridiculous, overly religious or not enough so. It is very difficult to discern exactly what T.F. Powys' religious beliefs are, and he's certainly not trying to convert you.

There's a great deal of humor in his writing, frequently by animating animals and insects, stones, and fire, but mostly through the use of irony and through an understanding of the complexities and frailties of the human psyche - the preacher trying to convert the fallen girl in one story keeps holding her hand, and everyone is gossiping. Although the collection was very long, I could hardly put it down, it has a certain entertainment value as each story prods your moral consciousness. It was nice to read something that dealt with the eternal truths of the meaning of life, by showing, not telling.

So who is T.F. Powys? Some kind of 17th century throwback writing in the early 20th century? Modernism has completely escaped him. Although I have a long list of books by him still to read, my first impression is of a highly original writer with a unique, individualistic style, a very directed one, not to please, not to create any kind of social consciousness, I often felt like he was writing just for himself, without any intention of others reading his work, as a way of working out philosophical and religious problems he faced and thought about. He retired to a small town in Dorset called East Haddon early in life where he did his writing, which due to his presence became a sort of artist's colony back in the day. He hated cities and travel, and was content where he was.

As an aside, it should be noted that his work is completely unlike that of his more famous brothers; but honestly, his treatment of religion is far richer and deeper than that of John Cowper (with his "First Cause") or the dismissive atheism of Llewelyn. His descriptive powers and understanding of the human psyche are clearly less, but these stories were nonetheless richly rewarding, perhaps not as great literary achievements but maybe - Aesop's Fables with a touch of Maupassant? It's hard to characterize them. I'm not even sure who I would recommend them to - honestly I don't think a modern reader would find the religion component "offensive" - perhaps - hmmm..... Maybe if someone said to me "I read all this modern lit and it has nothing to say except about how bad and empty society is" I might recommend them. Given the highly anti-religious component of some of these stories ("The Only Penitent" is a bit shocking), it hardly seems appropriate for my Christian friends (although they would clearly like some of them.)

Well the point of these reviews is to give some guidance to people who may be interested in reading these books, and I think the above pretty much fairly sums it up, so I leave it up to you to decide.... I think in the end the best test for me is how avidly I read a book and when I woke up this morning, my first thought was how excited I was to be reading more of these stories today, so there you have it.