Blaze of Noon

by Rayner Heppenstall

Book by Heppenstall, Rayner

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

John Rayner Heppenstall was an English novelist, poet, diarist, and a BBC radio producer.

Heppenstall's first novel The Blaze of Noon, was neglected at the time. Much later, in 1967, it received an Arts Council award. He was Francophile in literary terms, and his non-fiction writing reflects his tastes.

Critical attention has linked him to the French nouveau roman, in fact as an anticipator, or as a writer of the "anti-novel". Several critics (including, according to his diaries, Helene Cixous) have named Heppenstall in this connection. He is sometimes therefore grouped with Alain Robbe-Grillet, or associated with other British experimentalists: Anthony Burgess, B. S. Johnson, Ann Quin, Alan Burns, Stefan Themerson and Eva Figes. The Connecting Door (1962) is singled out as influenced by the nouveau roman.

He was certainly influenced by Raymond Roussel, whose Impressions of Africa he translated. Later novels include The Shearers, Two Moons and The Pier. He also wrote a short study of the French Catholic writer Léon Bloy.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buried author Rayner Heppenstall’s debut novel is cited (in this intro) as one of the first nouveau roman texts—an accident, since the blind narrator’s dismissal of visual description is something of a necessity, and the French novelists failed to acknowledge this novel as an influence. The resemblance is irrelevant (and inaccurate), as this is a more conventional novel told in blazing first-person prose, brimming with marvellous sensual description and a feast of sublime characterisation and erudite ruminations on the flightiness of human emotions, in the kind of profound and intellectual prose that is truly a relic in comparison to the ham-fisted Dear Aunt pokings of modern writers. The maturity, utter lack of sentiment and melodrama that marks this writing is a hallmark of a bygone era, and reading brilliance like this simply makes one lament for those bygone days, and dread whatever affectless postpostmodern soup these whippersnores are serving us up as the future of fic. Shovels at the ready.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

All texts are experimental, for one can never know for certain how they will turn out. Nor, indeed, can one ever know how one's writing will re-form in the mind of a Reader.

So, yes, this is an experimental novel. Even more so when one remembers it was written at the time of the Munich crisis. It was considered scandalous at the time, though it is less erotic and less explicit than much contemporary Young Adult fiction.

The narrator is blind, though he was not born so. He suffered a loss in his late teenage years. The world of the novel has its visual element removed, and the narrative is limited to the internal reality of the narrator. This makes him an outsider, and unreliable. Descriptions of objects intertwine with complex intellectual reflection, there are lines of great lyrical beauty.

It is a masterfully written novel, which deserves a wide readership. It sits on the fence somewhere between the avant-guard and the traditional and, in my opinion, would bring great pleasure to fans of either or of both.

[juno · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the eye is not a living thing existing unto itself. It is a channel through which the whole creature is living. If the eye offends, that is the moment at which is should least of all be plucked out. Wait. Let the channel purify itself and new, fresh waters pour in to purify all the connected channels within.

i reallyy loved the writing in this, especially in the front-half of the book as we are getting to know our narrator and his observations of the new place and ppl around him. but the final act picks up the pace almost too much, and it was unclear to me how much of the vagueness was an intentional mechanic of the limited pov. but in general, i was rlly taken by the mix of sentimentality and intellectualising in louis' narration, it makes him a great character and there are these wonderful passages of just sensory description and internal thought which are lovely to read.

i do wish that the dialogue btween louis and sophie was a little less sparse, although at the same time this restraint makes sophie's outburst later so much more affecting. and also made me wish that we heard more of her for the rest of the book. i was also thinking a bit abt madonna in a fur coat while reading this.. i think while i felt at times that both 'suffer' from being love stories dominated by a male narrator's perspective at the expense of a more fleshed out woman, it feels more intentional in this. if only bcus in madonna it feels like there is a complete absence of specifity abt maria and raif's yearning becomes almost self-absorbed and numbingly generalised. in this, louis is much more prone to intense psychoanalysis abt sophie - almost the opposite problem- which at least if it doesn't give us a clearer view of her, allows us a clearer view of him.

i also think that the character of amity nance in this is soo fascinating and i love how it is this looming thing over louis and only bcomes a reality in the last third of the book, and how suddenly his perspective is toppled. it is also i think an interesting exploration of what louis owes to other ppl with disabilities, and the discomfort/resentment he feels in seeing how amity is infantilised by others, esp bcus so much of his self-identity is wrapped around his sense of his own earned independence. and also bcus of the way the ppl around him place this expectation/duty on him with no regard to how much he and amity might actually have in common as ppl beyond their visual impairments. and then the moment when he meets the real person of amity, past others' and his own preconceptions, is such a beautiful moment. anyways i basically just loved how complicated louis' feelings re all this are, and for the most part liked the endpoint

[Seth Lynch · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable book with some beautiful passages. Some ideas in it are a little dated although they were probably progressive at the time