Joyce Cary (1888–1957)

That’s it,’ I said. ‘It’s the jaws of death. Look at me. One of the cleverest painters who ever lived. Nobody ever had anything like my dexterity, except Rubens on a good day. I could show you an eye—a woman’s eye, from my brush, that beats anything I’ve ever seen by Rubens. A little miracle of brushwork. And if I hadn’t been lucky I might have spent the rest of my life doing conjuring tricks to please the millionaires, and the professors. But I escaped. God knows how. I fell show more off the tram. I lost my ticket and my virtue. Why, your ladyship, a lot of my recent stuff is not much better, technically, than any young lady can do after six lessons at a good school. Heavy-handed, stupid looking daubery. Only difference is that it’s about something—it’s an experience, and all this amateur stuff is like farting Annie Laurie through a keyhole. It may be clever but is it worth the trouble? What I say is, why not do some real work, your ladyship? Use your loaf, I mean your brain. Do some thinking. Sit down and ask yourself what’s it all about.’

—The Horse’s Mouth by Joyce Cary

I’ve never read a book so true to the character of a true artist. So scathing of other’s art while damning the whole enterprise and his paltry participation in it. I thoroughly loved this book and its frank appraisal of all things faked, true or, more likely, some combination of the two.

Several pages in, the binding started to crack and I had to tape up the entire side. But tricky, unsticky, recalcitrant page eighty-seven kept popping out the book for the rest of the journey. Like a buzzing fly that’s too savvy or drunk on morning sunlight to land in a suitable place for pestered human hands to swat. And if the physical aspect of this mass market paperback seemed to match the dilapidation of Gulley Jimson’s approach to relationships, art and life, well then, that’s fine by me. This worn-out copy’s got a life all its own. show less

Masterful character depictions not limited to the titular character nor other native people of Nigeria, but the white "overlords" as well--from Pig's-Neck to his wife and even barelly sketched minor characters. Mister Johnson himself is a tragi-comic character who makes us laugh along with, and a bit *at,* and love this absurd man who, in the end, just wants to make everyone happy. Using colourful words that may be politically incorrect today, Cary can be forgiven for using words of his show more generation; the book was published 1939. And he (i neer knew Joyce was a 'he') shows great empathy for his character. Truly a pleasure. show less

I had always imagined from reading the blurbs about this book that it was in some way comic. It isn't. I was reminded of the miasmic sense of futility that pervaded George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant".
Mister Johnson suffers from the "Big Man" syndrome. He imagines wealth and the good things in life are his due because he has a chief clerk's job in a District office of the Nigerian Colonial Service. He is inept; he steals, he borrows irresponsibly, he lies and is a farcical show more husband.
Meanwhile, the District Officer sees the opportunity of a road building project as a lasting memorial to his term of tenure at his otherwise tedious posting.
All transactions are corrupt in this dusty set-up. Accounts are falsified, money diverted, the roading project brings only overcrowding and no prosperity.
There is no resolution to the colonial divide, and it is Cary's genius that drives home the futility of colonial administration amid the chronically corrupt and mean culture of the native population. The final scenes are a devastating commentary on the whole sorry story. show less

Marvellous reading. The eternal problem of women, and the received wisdom with respect to sex is at issue here. Three sisters who have all accepted Victorian attitudes to chastity, and who hold refined sentiment paramount, discover that loathing, depression and hypocrisy corrupt them as the decades pass. Ella, the most examined of the three, and the most injudiciously treated, has a daughter Amanda, who must herself cope with a new feminine identity striving to be recognized in a new age, show more determinedly not Victorian.
The action takes place at different times from Victorian to a "present" in the summer of 1938. And during this time the centrality of a woman to family life, and the family as a fundamental aspect of civilization, was blown away to be replaced by modern ideas, which had not yet resolved the problems of work, money, suffering etc.
Interestingly, Cary says women's freedom "like all freedom, means work and suffering, insecurity and the endless anxiety of moral choice; and yet it is the most precious thing they have. It is the soul of their dignity as modern women". show less