----
The world is so dreadfully managed, one
hardly knows to whom to complain.
-- Ronald Firbank
Life
'Ronald Firbank has been called the last of the 1890s decadents, the first impressionist novelist, and a modernist like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and D.H. Lawrence. Basically, however, he is an eccentric writer who belongs to no school. His uniqueness has attracted the admiration of many prominent critics and novelists. But despite their praise the number of his readers has remained small, and most of his books were published at his own expense.
'In person he was reportedly as mannered as his prose style; he was vain, stuttering, effeminate, alcoholic, homosexual, shy to the point of writhing. His conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1907, which might to another writer have afforded theme and substance for his books, as it did, for example, to Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene, in his case supplied him only with decorative details and sly humor about flagellation and the folly of choirboys.
'Firbank believed only in his own vision and probably would have denied that he had one; he might have shared the wish of Gustave Flaubert, one of his influences, to write "a book about nothing," sustained by style alone. Firbank's style has been called mannered, precious, camp, arch, coarse, silly, and other more-or-less negative names, and they are all accurate. But it is also true that he is one of the great stylists of the novel and one of its great comedians, artificers, and wits.
'Ronald Firbank died at 40 in Rome, of pneumonia complicated by alcoholism. In a twist he could have written himself, Firbank was mistakenly buried in a Protestant cemetery and then reinterred at San Lorenzo after the error was pointed out to the Vatican.'
![]()
'In person he was reportedly as mannered as his prose style; he was vain, stuttering, effeminate, alcoholic, homosexual, shy to the point of writhing. His conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1907, which might to another writer have afforded theme and substance for his books, as it did, for example, to Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene, in his case supplied him only with decorative details and sly humor about flagellation and the folly of choirboys.
'Firbank believed only in his own vision and probably would have denied that he had one; he might have shared the wish of Gustave Flaubert, one of his influences, to write "a book about nothing," sustained by style alone. Firbank's style has been called mannered, precious, camp, arch, coarse, silly, and other more-or-less negative names, and they are all accurate. But it is also true that he is one of the great stylists of the novel and one of its great comedians, artificers, and wits.
'Ronald Firbank died at 40 in Rome, of pneumonia complicated by alcoholism. In a twist he could have written himself, Firbank was mistakenly buried in a Protestant cemetery and then reinterred at San Lorenzo after the error was pointed out to the Vatican.'
He is buried here
----
'I am always disappointed with mountains.
There are no mountains in the world as high
as I would wish. They irritate me invariably.
I should like to shake Switzerland.'
-- Ronald Firbank
Novels
![]()
Vainglory (1915) **
Firbank's first mature work concerns the desire of Mrs. Shamefoot to erect a memorial window to herself in a cathedral. It is a mélange of ecclesiastical politics and worldly prelates, of actresses and artists. The Times (London) complained of Vainglory that its "endless flow of scintillating nonsense is most exhausting," and the novelist Ada Leverson said that it was "restless and witty and allusive enough to give anyone who understands it a nervous breakdown."'And, then, oh yes! Atalanta is getting too pronounced.' She spoke lightly, leaning back a little in her deep armchair. It was the end of a somewhat lively review.
On such a languid afternoon how hard it seemed to bear a cross ! Pleasant to tilt it a little—lean it for an instant against somebody else.... Her listener waved her handkerchief expressively. She felt, just then, it was safer not to speak....
On a dark canvas screen were grouped some inconceivably delicate Persian miniatures.
She bent towards them. 'Oh, what gems !'
Inclinations (1916) **
concerns the journey to Greece of Geraldine O'Brookomore, "the authoress of Six Strange Sisters, Those Gonzagas, etc.," and the youthful Miss Mabel Collins. The highlights of the novel are the accidental slaughter of one lady by another during a wild-duck shooting expedition; the worldwide search of an Australian named Miss Dawkins for her lost father--she is searching alphabetically (after Greece, she "proposes to do the I's ... India, Italy, Ireland, Iceland...."); and the singular chapter twenty which consists entirely of the exclamation "Mabel!" repeated eight times: these are the lamentations of Miss O'Brookomore after Mabel has left her for a young Italian count. As with his other early work, reviews of Inclinations were few in number, and patronizing, puzzled, or negative in tone.'Probably a creature with a whole gruesome family?' she indirectly enquired.
'Unhappily he's only just left Oxford.'
'Ah, handsome, then, I hope.'
'On the contrary, he's like one of those cherubs one sees on eighteenth-century fonts with their mouths stuffed with cake.'
'Not really?'
'And he wears glasses.'
'But he takes them off sometimes ?'
'That's just what I don't know.'
![]()
'The Boards, I believe, are new to you?'
'Absolutely.'
'Kindly stand.'
'I'm five full feet.'
'Say "Abyssinia".'
'Abyssinia!'
'As I guessed . . .'
'I was never there.'
'Now say "Joan".'
'Joan!'
'You're Comedy, my dear. Distinctly ! And now sit down.'
![]()
'One could count more alluring faces out with the Valmouth, my husband used to say, than with any other pack. The Baroness Elsassar—I can see her now on her great mauve mount with her Profile of royalty in misfortune—never missed. Neither, bustless, hipless, chinless, did "Miss Bligh"! it was she who so sweetly hoisted me to my saddle when I'd slid a-heap after the run of a 'fairly fox'. We'd whiffed it—the baying of the dogs is something I shall never forget; dogs always know!—in a swede-field below your house, from where it took us by breakneck, rapid stages— (oh ! oh !)—to the sands. There, it hurried off along the sea's edge with the harriers in full cry..all at once near Pizon Point, it vanished. Mr. Rogers, who was a little ahead, drew his horse in with the queerest gape—like a lost huntsman (precisely) in the Bibliotheque bleue.'
![]()
'The Passing of Rose I read the other day,' Mrs. Montgomery said, 'and so enjoyed it.'
'Isn't that one of Ronald Firbank's books?'
'No, dear, I don't think it is....'
'I suppose I'm getting squeamish! But this Ronald Firbank I can't take to at all. Valmouth! Was there ever a novel more Coarse? I assure you I hadn't gone very far when I had to Put it down.'
'It's out', Mrs. Bedley suavely said, 'as well', she added, 'as the rest of them.'
'I once met him', Miss Hopkins said, dilating slightly the retinae of her eyes. 'He told me writing books was by no means easy !'
A moment later a nun enters the shop:
'Have you Valmouth by Ronald Firbank, or Inclinations by the same author?' she asked.
'Neither: I'm sorry—both are out !'
![]()
![]()
'The dear 'santissima' woman', the Pontiff sighed, for he entertained a sincere, if brackish, enthusiasm for the lady who for so many years had corresponded with the Holy See under the signature of The Countess of Lostwaters.
'Anglicans . . . Heliolaters and sun-worshippers', she had written in her most masterful hand, 'and your Holiness may believe us', she had added, 'when we say especially our beloved Scotch.'
'Ah, handsome, then, I hope.'
'On the contrary, he's like one of those cherubs one sees on eighteenth-century fonts with their mouths stuffed with cake.'
'Not really?'
'And he wears glasses.'
'But he takes them off sometimes ?'
'That's just what I don't know.'
Caprice (1917) **
is the story of the stagestruck Miss Sarah Sinquier, daughter of a cathedral dean, who steals the family silver in order to run off to London and pursue a theatrical career. The Café Royal, well-known as a literary hangout for Firbank and many other artists and writers, is one of the settings. With his typical cold and melancholy irony, Firbank ends the novel with the death of Miss Sinquier, who, dancing triumphantly on the stage of the theater she has hired to perform Juliet in, plunges to her death through a trapdoor.'The Boards, I believe, are new to you?'
'Absolutely.'
'Kindly stand.'
'I'm five full feet.'
'Say "Abyssinia".'
'Abyssinia!'
'As I guessed . . .'
'I was never there.'
'Now say "Joan".'
'Joan!'
'You're Comedy, my dear. Distinctly ! And now sit down.'
Valmouth (1919) *
Valmouth is a watering place so salubrious that many of its inhabitants have lived to well over a hundred years. They enjoy patronizing a powerful black masseuse, Mrs. Yajñavalkya. Mrs. Yaj's niece, Niri-Esther, by her marriage to the dashing young Lieutenant Dick Whorwood, symbolizes the intrusion of more earthy forces into the desiccated nonagenarian aristocrats of Valmouth, and also marks Firbank's increasing interest in black people and their, to him, more innocent vitality and charm.'One could count more alluring faces out with the Valmouth, my husband used to say, than with any other pack. The Baroness Elsassar—I can see her now on her great mauve mount with her Profile of royalty in misfortune—never missed. Neither, bustless, hipless, chinless, did "Miss Bligh"! it was she who so sweetly hoisted me to my saddle when I'd slid a-heap after the run of a 'fairly fox'. We'd whiffed it—the baying of the dogs is something I shall never forget; dogs always know!—in a swede-field below your house, from where it took us by breakneck, rapid stages— (oh ! oh !)—to the sands. There, it hurried off along the sea's edge with the harriers in full cry..all at once near Pizon Point, it vanished. Mr. Rogers, who was a little ahead, drew his horse in with the queerest gape—like a lost huntsman (precisely) in the Bibliotheque bleue.'
The Flower Beneath the Foot (1923) *
is the life story of a fictional saint, Lady Laura de Nazianzi ("Some girls are born organically good; I wasn't") and her doomed love for His Weariness Prince Yousef, the son of King Willie and Her Dreaminess the Queen (for whom a royal visitor, Queen Thleeanouhee of the Land of Dates, conceives a tropical passion). For reasons of state Yousef must marry Princess Alice of England, and Laura enters a convent on her way to sainthood. The last scene, after the brittle and rococo wit that has preceded it, is moving: while cathedral chimes toll for the wedding of Yousef and Alice, Laura is beating her hands upon the broken glass ends atop the convent wall crying "Yousef, Yousef, Yousef...."'The Passing of Rose I read the other day,' Mrs. Montgomery said, 'and so enjoyed it.'
'Isn't that one of Ronald Firbank's books?'
'No, dear, I don't think it is....'
'I suppose I'm getting squeamish! But this Ronald Firbank I can't take to at all. Valmouth! Was there ever a novel more Coarse? I assure you I hadn't gone very far when I had to Put it down.'
'It's out', Mrs. Bedley suavely said, 'as well', she added, 'as the rest of them.'
'I once met him', Miss Hopkins said, dilating slightly the retinae of her eyes. 'He told me writing books was by no means easy !'
A moment later a nun enters the shop:
'Have you Valmouth by Ronald Firbank, or Inclinations by the same author?' she asked.
'Neither: I'm sorry—both are out !'
Prancing Nigger (1924) *
A village family, the Mouths, migrate to the capital of their island (probably inspired by Haiti) to enter the great life of cities. Says Mrs. Almadou Mouth, "We leave Mediavilla for de education ob my daughters.... We go to Cuna-Cuna, for de finishing ob mes filles." It takes some adapting to clothing and plumbing, but the Mouths and their children, Miami, Edna, and Charlie, learn more worldly ways and have their social and sexual successes.
Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli (1926) *
begins with the cardinal baptizing a police puppy named Crack in the font of his Cathedral of Clemenza; it ends when the naked cardinal, who is to leave for Rome the following morning to learn from the Pope his punishment for the baptism, drops dead while pursuing a boy named Chicklet around the same church.'The dear 'santissima' woman', the Pontiff sighed, for he entertained a sincere, if brackish, enthusiasm for the lady who for so many years had corresponded with the Holy See under the signature of The Countess of Lostwaters.
'Anglicans . . . Heliolaters and sun-worshippers', she had written in her most masterful hand, 'and your Holiness may believe us', she had added, 'when we say especially our beloved Scotch.'
To be sympathetic without discrimination
is so very debilitating. -- Ronald Firbank
Adjective
10 uses of the term Firbankian
1.
Guide to the Richard Blake Brown Letters, 1933-1962
COLLECTION DESCRIPTION: Correspondence by Richard Blake Brown, Anglican priest and sub-Firbankian gay novelist to Marcus Oliver. Written from various places on a variety of letterheads and on a variety of subjects, including fashion and costume designer Norman Hartnell; novelist Denton Welch; Brown's meeting with Queen Mary; gay life in and out of the British Navy; and World War II in England. In addition to the letters are a photograph of Brown, a 4-page publicity leaflet regarding Brown's novels, an item regarding an Anglo Latin-American costume exhibit, a magazine clipping of two nude boys wrestling, and a card from a hairdresser.
2.
nudism or firbankian moments on the beach
summer holiday 1999, a boy perhaps a fiend:
for a few years I have been going to the nudist beach whenever the Dutch climate would allow a day in the sun, at first I thought it strange but it didn't took long for me to realise that it was absolutely normal, I did not miss anything I mean.
But only last year on another nudist day at Hook of Holland I went for a walk with some friends along the coast line; I think they put something on because we did not know how far we would walk, but I was rather ignorant at the moment that something could be wrong, when suddenly out of the blue there was this little boy, almost seven or eight years old in a shiny striped speedo with the emblem of a crying octopussy loosely stitched on the front (was it still...wet?) waving with a large butterfly-net at me, while he raved violently: "All willies must go away...dirty willies go away!"
I was horrified, did i already walk too far? I could have only just crossed the border where nudist recreation was no longer alowed and I did not yet see the signboard. And then already this angry young lad attacking me with his hard wooden stick!
-- erik, Tuesday, June 4, 2002, ilx.wh3rd.net
3.
From the lavender rust, to the Firbankian frisson, to the poofing incense, and baron Corvo incognito, this litany of homophobic codes has been marshaled to bear witness to what Kroll later characterizes as Rauschenberg's "Capotean" indulgence. From Kroll's perspective, we have indeed gotten "too close to the artist in the wrong sense," having uncovered his secrets: the expression of his ostensibly hidden homosexual life. What Kroll sneeringly refers to as the space "between the sanctum of private reference and the littered tundra of commemorative decay" is precisely the territory I want to navigate in my attempt to get "close to the artist." It is in this space between authoritative usage and "private reference" that the emergence of "other" meanings - seductive implications both "public" and "private" - emerge into discursive promise.
-- from LOVERS AND DIVERS: INTERPICTORIAL DIALOG IN THE WORK OF JASPER JOHNS AND JASPER JOHNS by Jonathan Katz
4.
I love those European Scientology celebrities, who are unique among celebrities in that nobody has ever heard of them. For some reason most of their names also sound like they've been made up. At one point, Scientology in the Netherlands trotted out a 'celebrity' spokesperson called Kiki Oostindiën, a self-described singer and model. One wouldn't dare to make it up. "Polish cellist Baroness Soujata de Varis" is a wonderful find, it sounds so splendidly Firbankian -- are they sure she exists for real and isn't just a character from a Firbank novel?
-- Piltdown Man, from a discussion on Scientology at alt.religion.scientology
5.
Authorial Adjectives
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then to have been imitated enough to warrant having your name turned into an adjective must be an embarrassment of riches. I came across an article this evening, "Adjectives and the Work of Modernism in an Age of Celebrity" (Project Muse) by Aaron Jaffe, which contains a partial list of authors whose names have been adjectivified, and entered popular use. Goodness, Ibsenite could be some dim, carbon-like mineral, I imagine. A Firbankian is obviously a resident of Firbanks, AK. Brontëan reminds me of some extinct race of malformed giants. Lawrentian: the name of some unplumbed undersea abyss.
-- from the blog Reeding Lessons
6.
... my highly evolved if not Firbankian sense of camp. Thus I eschew the ubiquitous Frida K; ditto anything with Day of the Dead skeletons on it. I avert my eyes from a stamp showing Georgia O'Keeffe in her jaunty gaucho hat. But somehow I end up with ...
-- from James Wolcott's blog
7.
Jean Rouch at 86 had lost some of his youthful energy but none of his wit and enthusiasm. With another great film-maker still not subdued by the constraints of old age, the veteran Portuguese master Manoel de Oliveira (a Firbankian nonagenarian), he made a film in Oporto centred on that city's Pont Eiffel, based on a poem d'Oliveira had written as a script.
-- from an obituary of director Jean Rouch by James Kirkup
8.
James Broughton's Mother's Day is a comic anti-tribute to Mother that envisions Father as mostly a face in a frame, staring dourly, and the children as childlike adults, mindlessly engaging in such rituals as playing hopscotch and shooting squirt guns. Broughton's attack on the family is wrapped in Firbankian whimsy: "Mother was the loveliest woman in the world," reads a title in the film, "And Mother wanted everything to be lovely."
-- from an appreciation o James Broughton at qlbtq.com
9.
The novelty of the plays, which feature ordinary suburban couples speaking gibberish with absolute complacency, is gone, of course, and they seem more mildly charming than explosive. But they do have their moments, with epigrammatic non sequiturs of Firbankian flair and a delightfully inane religious service broadcast on the radio.
--from Ben Brantley's review of a production of N.F. Simpson's short plays in the NY Times
10.
The obituaries recently published for Anthony Powell are infused with elegy, as though marking the end of a tradition. Here was the last man left with the confidence to write as he pleased. The room he occupied in the house of English literature was distinct, somewhere on a staircase nobody else climbed. Before the last war, he had published several Firbankian novels so light and comic that they are almost disembodied.
-- from a remembrance of Anthony Powell by David Pryce-Jones from The Paris Review
----
1.
Guide to the Richard Blake Brown Letters, 1933-1962
COLLECTION DESCRIPTION: Correspondence by Richard Blake Brown, Anglican priest and sub-Firbankian gay novelist to Marcus Oliver. Written from various places on a variety of letterheads and on a variety of subjects, including fashion and costume designer Norman Hartnell; novelist Denton Welch; Brown's meeting with Queen Mary; gay life in and out of the British Navy; and World War II in England. In addition to the letters are a photograph of Brown, a 4-page publicity leaflet regarding Brown's novels, an item regarding an Anglo Latin-American costume exhibit, a magazine clipping of two nude boys wrestling, and a card from a hairdresser.
2.
nudism or firbankian moments on the beach
summer holiday 1999, a boy perhaps a fiend:
for a few years I have been going to the nudist beach whenever the Dutch climate would allow a day in the sun, at first I thought it strange but it didn't took long for me to realise that it was absolutely normal, I did not miss anything I mean.
But only last year on another nudist day at Hook of Holland I went for a walk with some friends along the coast line; I think they put something on because we did not know how far we would walk, but I was rather ignorant at the moment that something could be wrong, when suddenly out of the blue there was this little boy, almost seven or eight years old in a shiny striped speedo with the emblem of a crying octopussy loosely stitched on the front (was it still...wet?) waving with a large butterfly-net at me, while he raved violently: "All willies must go away...dirty willies go away!"
I was horrified, did i already walk too far? I could have only just crossed the border where nudist recreation was no longer alowed and I did not yet see the signboard. And then already this angry young lad attacking me with his hard wooden stick!
-- erik, Tuesday, June 4, 2002, ilx.wh3rd.net
3.
From the lavender rust, to the Firbankian frisson, to the poofing incense, and baron Corvo incognito, this litany of homophobic codes has been marshaled to bear witness to what Kroll later characterizes as Rauschenberg's "Capotean" indulgence. From Kroll's perspective, we have indeed gotten "too close to the artist in the wrong sense," having uncovered his secrets: the expression of his ostensibly hidden homosexual life. What Kroll sneeringly refers to as the space "between the sanctum of private reference and the littered tundra of commemorative decay" is precisely the territory I want to navigate in my attempt to get "close to the artist." It is in this space between authoritative usage and "private reference" that the emergence of "other" meanings - seductive implications both "public" and "private" - emerge into discursive promise.
-- from LOVERS AND DIVERS: INTERPICTORIAL DIALOG IN THE WORK OF JASPER JOHNS AND JASPER JOHNS by Jonathan Katz
4.
I love those European Scientology celebrities, who are unique among celebrities in that nobody has ever heard of them. For some reason most of their names also sound like they've been made up. At one point, Scientology in the Netherlands trotted out a 'celebrity' spokesperson called Kiki Oostindiën, a self-described singer and model. One wouldn't dare to make it up. "Polish cellist Baroness Soujata de Varis" is a wonderful find, it sounds so splendidly Firbankian -- are they sure she exists for real and isn't just a character from a Firbank novel?
-- Piltdown Man, from a discussion on Scientology at alt.religion.scientology
5.
Authorial Adjectives
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then to have been imitated enough to warrant having your name turned into an adjective must be an embarrassment of riches. I came across an article this evening, "Adjectives and the Work of Modernism in an Age of Celebrity" (Project Muse) by Aaron Jaffe, which contains a partial list of authors whose names have been adjectivified, and entered popular use. Goodness, Ibsenite could be some dim, carbon-like mineral, I imagine. A Firbankian is obviously a resident of Firbanks, AK. Brontëan reminds me of some extinct race of malformed giants. Lawrentian: the name of some unplumbed undersea abyss.
-- from the blog Reeding Lessons
6.
... my highly evolved if not Firbankian sense of camp. Thus I eschew the ubiquitous Frida K; ditto anything with Day of the Dead skeletons on it. I avert my eyes from a stamp showing Georgia O'Keeffe in her jaunty gaucho hat. But somehow I end up with ...
-- from James Wolcott's blog
7.
Jean Rouch at 86 had lost some of his youthful energy but none of his wit and enthusiasm. With another great film-maker still not subdued by the constraints of old age, the veteran Portuguese master Manoel de Oliveira (a Firbankian nonagenarian), he made a film in Oporto centred on that city's Pont Eiffel, based on a poem d'Oliveira had written as a script.
-- from an obituary of director Jean Rouch by James Kirkup
8.
James Broughton's Mother's Day is a comic anti-tribute to Mother that envisions Father as mostly a face in a frame, staring dourly, and the children as childlike adults, mindlessly engaging in such rituals as playing hopscotch and shooting squirt guns. Broughton's attack on the family is wrapped in Firbankian whimsy: "Mother was the loveliest woman in the world," reads a title in the film, "And Mother wanted everything to be lovely."
-- from an appreciation o James Broughton at qlbtq.com
9.
The novelty of the plays, which feature ordinary suburban couples speaking gibberish with absolute complacency, is gone, of course, and they seem more mildly charming than explosive. But they do have their moments, with epigrammatic non sequiturs of Firbankian flair and a delightfully inane religious service broadcast on the radio.
--from Ben Brantley's review of a production of N.F. Simpson's short plays in the NY Times
10.
The obituaries recently published for Anthony Powell are infused with elegy, as though marking the end of a tradition. Here was the last man left with the confidence to write as he pleased. The room he occupied in the house of English literature was distinct, somewhere on a staircase nobody else climbed. Before the last war, he had published several Firbankian novels so light and comic that they are almost disembodied.
-- from a remembrance of Anthony Powell by David Pryce-Jones from The Paris Review
----
'`O, help me heaven,' she prayed, `to
be decorative and to do right.'
-- Ronald Firbank
Supporters
The shy, steely Ronald Firbank
Alan Hollinghurst
When Oscar Wilde’s younger son Vyvyan reached the age of twenty-one, in 1907, no one in his family seemed inclined to organize a celebration. As he wrote later, with gloomy realism, “I suppose they thought that nothing in any way connected with my birth was a matter for rejoicing”. So his father’s loyal friend and supporter Robbie Ross took it upon himself to give a dinner party. There were twelve people present, all men, including the artists William Rothenstein, Charles Shannon and Charles Ricketts, and also, more surprisingly, Henry James, who wasn’t a part of Oscar’s world or of his son’s. Indeed James had always kept his distance from the writer whose rise in the theatre had coincided with his own failure there, and whose spectacular fall he had watched with a wary fascination, describing it as “beyond any utterance of irony or any pang of compassion”. From Vyvyan’s own generation of friends only two were present, one of them being Arthur Firbank, not yet known as Ronald and still an undergraduate at Cambridge. (read the rest)
"What charms us in him is his taste, his choice of words, the rhythm both of his narrative and of his conversations, his wit, and--in his later work--an opulence as of gathered fruit and enameled skies." -- E. M. Forster
"Firbank should be honored as a great master of 20th-century literature, one whose books taught narrative economy, lightness of touch and speed to a generation of writers, among them Evelyn Waugh, Henry Green and Anthony Powell. As an innovator and stylistic influence he stands to later English fiction precisely as early Hemingway does to American. . . . Firbank's work may glisten like spun sugar but turns out to be as strong as chrome steel. . . . Firbank's pointillism, his soap-opera storylines, his wit and even his silliness all helped to aerate the weighty fiction of eminent Victorians and earnest Edwardians, and, in particular, allowed him to slice through the Gordian knottiness of Henry James who aimed to say everything in his novels, and took his sweet time about it too. . . . Firbank remains unremittingly, gloriously campy. This is a given, like Beckett's gloom and Borges's scholasticism, and a real reader wouldn't have him any other way. . . . [Firbank's stories] can be read again and again with ever-deepening pleasure. In the right mood they are very nearly the most amusing novels in the world." -- Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World
Jocelyn Brooke
RONALD FIRBANK, though he seems to us so very much a child of his own period, might also, paradoxically, be described as a man born out of his time. Apart from a fragment of juvenilia, all his books appeared between -the years 1915 and 1926 (The Artificial Princess was published posthumously in 1934, but was probably written in about 1914.) and one tends to think of them— along with Eliot's Prudrock and Huxley's Antic Hay—as typical products of the nineteen-twenties; yet Firbank's true affinities were with the fin de siecle, the epoch of Wilde, Beardsley and The Yellow Book. Had he, in fact, been born a decade or so earlier, he would almost certainly not have written the kind of novels he did, and quite possibly would have produced nothing memorable at all, for his work owes its unique quality to a kind of literary cross-breeding: his innate ninetyishness is, as it were, hybridised with the more cynical and disillusioned spirit of a later age. He himself remained a good old-fashioned aesthete, his approach to life and literature was deliberately precious and artificial; but the chronological gap which separated him from the nineties enabled him to view the 'Mauve Decade' with a certain detachment, and to appreciate its more comical aspects; he possessed, moreover, a pronounced faculty for self-mockery, and was quite capable of laughing at his own preciosity.(read the rest)
----
*
p.s. Hey. I thought I would ask you to spend the weekend with the sublime Ronald Firbank courtesy of this old post that I found in unseeable tatters when searching the archive for things to keep you busy or whatever while I'm away. A little fixing and sprucing up, and there you go. Hope you like it. Hope you have great weekends. Hope you'll let me know. Expect the blog to show up around the time that you usually expect it to on Monday.