A Man from the North

This is strictly for Bennett aficionados like me who want to see the seeds of the writer he later became. 2.5* rounded down.

This is Arnold Bennett’s first novel(la), published in 1898 (GR wrongly says 1911). It's a standalone story with some autobiographical elements (GR wrongly says it's the first of the Five Towns books). Richard Larch is the eponymous young man who comes to London to work as a solicitor’s clerk. “A” (generic) man from the north. He’s well-read, alone in the world, without private income, and wants to be a writer.

Love of London

For all its faults, it does have Bennett’s trademark realism: sharp and sometimes poetic observations of relatively ordinary places, people, and the minutiae of quotidian life, show more contrasted with the brighter lights of the west end.

“An inconstant, unrefreshing breeze, sluggish with accumulated impurity, stirred the curtains, and every urban sound—high-pitched voices of children playing, roll of wheels and rhythmic trot of horses, shouts of newsboys and querulous barking of dogs—came through the open windows touched with a certain languorous quality that suggested a city fatigued, a city yearning for the moist recesses of woods, the disinfectant breath of mountain tops, and the cleansing sea.”

Image: “The ambrosial exteriors of Strand restaurants” in John Atkinson Grimshaw’s 1892 painting, “Evening On the Strand Looking Towards St Mary's, London” (Source)

Gear change

It’s about the thrill of London, and the frustrations of office politics and trying to write. Then it switches to a possible romance (including several chapters of backstory of a new character); London and lawyers are almost forgotten until near the end. The plot change felt clumsy and unbalanced, plus the book lacks the humour and sparkle that Bennett used judiciously in later works.

Looking up - and down

Self-improvement is good, isn’t it? At first, Richard gets a thrill from dining in smart restaurants with a colleague:
“Secretly elated by the proximity of men older and more prosperous than themselves, whom they met on equal terms.”
But he’s naturally judgemental and this evolves into sneering:
“He had outgrown them; he surveyed them now as from a tower. He was a man with a future, using this restaurant because it suited him temporarily to do so, while they would use it till the end, never deviating, never leaving the rut.”

Richard’s hubris is punctuated by self-doubt and writer’s block, but mostly he thinks himself better than those around him, including fellow tourists in the seaside resort of Littlehampton:
“It was unpicturesque as a manufacturing town, and its summer visitors were an infestive, lower-middle class folk, garishly clothed, and unlearned in the fine art of enjoyment.”

Image: Richard enjoys the theatre, and this is a programme from the Alhambra Theatre in 1898 - the year this was published (Source)

His sense of entitlement to a woman of his own, and resentment that he doesn’t yet have one, is particularly sour. He’s not a nice character, but nor is he satisfyingly wicked or genuinely witty, though his assessments of women’s looks are waspish:
“Her features, especially the nostrils, mouth, and chin, were somewhat heavy, but she had prettily shaped ears.”
Another woman:
“The flattened nose whose tilt unpleasantly revealed the nostrils, were obvious and repellent… Her small hands were neatly gloved, and held a cheap, effective parasol. The woman's normal expression was one of cow-like vacancy.”

Quirks

Some of what Brits think of as Americanisms were common in British English of the past: “gotten” is the obvious example. However, I was surprised that in a restaurant, Richard asked for the check (not even spelt “cheque”).

“They called the meal ‘lunch’, but it was really their dinner, though neither of them ever admitted the fact.”
This is back to aspirations: the names and menu of meals are a major class and regional marker (see Kate Fox’s Watching the English which I reviewed HERE).
"‘And what shall we have for dinner?’
‘Oh! Eggs and bread and butter and tea.’
‘Tea for dinner!’”

One thing I didn’t understand was a major flu outbreak in summer. Does that ever happen?

Quotes

• “The effort of two secretly bored persons to continue a perfunctory conversation unaided by a single mutual interest.”

• “The latent poetry of the suburbs arose like a beautiful vapour and filled these monotonous and squalid vistas with the scent and the colour of violets, leaving nothing common, nothing ignoble.”

• “The morning was delicious, full of light and freshness, and the torpid countryside through which the train swept at full speed suggested a gentle yet piquant contrast to the urban, gaslight themes which they were discussing.”

• “It was the play-house and not the play of which she was really fond.”

• “He fell into a practice of deliberately seeking out and magnifying the finer qualities in her nature, while ignoring those which were likely to offend him; indeed he refused to allow himself to be offended.”

• “The suburbs, even Walham Green and Fulham, are full of interest, for those who can see it. Walk along this very street on such a Sunday afternoon as to-day. The roofs form two horrible, converging straight lines I know, but beneath there is character, individuality, enough to make the greatest book ever written. Note the varying indications supplied by bad furniture seen through curtained windows… listen to the melodies issuing lamely from ill-tuned pianos; examine the enervated figures of women reclining amidst flower-pots on narrow balconies.”

Seeds of literary merit

This book's value is in comparison to what followed. In that way, it's similar to the early novella that John Williams (most famous for Stoner) disowned: see my review of Nothing But the Night, HERE. show less

Un hombre de Norte, narra una parte de la vida de Richard Larch, en la que su objetivo principal es intentar vivir de la literatura. Para ello se traslada a Londres y compagina su carrera literaria con un puesto administrativo en un bufete de abogados, publicando sus primeros relatos. Pero el destino le conducirá a conocer a Adeline, sobrina de un ex compañero de trabajo, el señor Aked, con el que adquirirá el compromiso de escribir un libro sobre los suburbios londinenses. La carrera literaria no resultará sencilla y tendrá que elegir entre su vida personal y profesional.
Esta obra, que, en principio se iba a titular En la sombra, es la primera novela publicada por Arnold Bennett en el año 1898. En buena parte es una show more autobiografía de la adolescencia del propio autor. Tras su publicación pudo ver su sueño convertido en realidad, vivir de la literatura. show less