PART
TWO: BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
*
JOHN
COWPER POWYS
Of all
twentieth-century authors, John Cowper Powys was surely the most prolific. From a traditional fictional standpoint he
was also probably the most gifted, though doubtfully the most profound. He was like an inexhaustible well of creativity
from whom book after compendious book flowed with a spiritual generosity more
reminiscent of the Middle Ages than of our own, somewhat more academic and
scientific time. He was no miser where
literary production was concerned, and neither could he be described as lazy,
he who must have got through more words than any other three major authors
combined! Indeed, so quickly and
fluently must he have written, that one might well describe his technique as
spontaneous, and define him as a bourgeois/proletarian author after the
mixed-class fashion of, say, D.H. Lawrence.
But if spontaneity is a hallmark of much proletarian writing,
the subject-matter of Powys' novels and philosophical works must mark him out
as a bourgeois author, and not one of the most enlightened bourgeois authors
either! For although he was never a
Christian, in the strictly devotional sense of that word, he was a long way
from being a transcendentalist - indeed, such a long way as to be essentially
neo-pagan and somewhat Rousseauesque in character.
Yes, there was a rather old-fashioned and even reactionary
streak about Powys, which led him to identify with Rousseau and
nature-worshippers generally. He
espoused the doctrine of 'Elementalism', or
controlled nature-worship, in pursuance of a dual, positive/negative attitude
towards the hypothetical First Cause of all Creation, which others might equate
with God the Father or Jehovah, depending on their religious persuasion. This First Cause, which Powys wisely
preferred not to anthropomorphize, was allegedly the fount from which all pain
and pleasure, sadness and happiness flowed, and should be regarded, in his
estimation, with an appropriately dualistic attitude of defiance alternating
with gratitude, as the occasion warranted.
Such was the base of Powys' religious faith, and he remained its
faithful adherent to the last. Thus he
remained orientated towards the galactic-world-order in deference to the
diabolic creative and sustaining force behind all life, which more perceptive
intellectuals would equate with solar or stellar energy without, however,
deigning to anthropomorphize it, like a Christian.
Whether Powys found his twenty-year stint in
As a philosopher Powys was never more than popular, given by
natural inclination to practical philosophy, with its hints to the common man
as to the wisest conduct of life in the natural environment. His work thus ranks fairly humbly in the
hierarchy of philosophical writings. For
applied philosophy inevitably falls short of the academic brand, its emphasis
being utilitarian rather than intellectual, something to live by rather than to
think by. Had Powys been a better man
his work would doubtless stand higher in the hierarchy of philosophical
writings. But his closeness to nature
ensured that he remained one of the Devil's most fervent disciples - a
thoroughly heathen type of spiritual bourgeois!
Of all his works, the ones I've been least able to abide are the
novels, partly because of their inordinate length in a majority of cases, but
partly, too, because of the way in which they are written and the level of
thought they generally contain. I have
already referred to the obvious fluency of technique, which in itself need not
arouse any critical hostility, as a quasi-proletarian dimension in Powys'
novels. But their inordinate length,
which must be tied-up with a spontaneous approach, is quite the reverse of a
proletarian dimension, being, if anything, closer to medieval aristocratic
materialism. Only a bourgeois of extreme
reactionary cast would write novels in excess of seven-hundred pages. For the bulk that results from such a length
guarantees a degree of voluminous materialism, in the published book, far in
excess of anything commensurate with proletarian criteria of spiritual
progress. Only a bourgeois of Powys'
mentality could have equated spiritual greatness with extreme length of a
novel. For, in reality, evolutionary
progress demands that as the spirit expands, so the material aspect of writing
contracts, resulting in shorter books of superior spiritual insight. Powys' novels lacked both slenderness and superior
spiritual insight, and are therefore of a relatively inferior quality from any
strictly transcendental standpoint.
Given that the level of thought in the average Powys novel, like
A
Glastonbury Romance, is pretty low, fit only for humanistic or pre-humanistic
(pseudo-pagan) mentalities, the style in which they are written can be no less
distressing, especially when involving the overly parochial or colloquial
idioms of a Penny Pitches or a Tossie Stickles or
even a Mr Weatherwax!
Here Powys reveals himself to be worse than culturally reactionary;
simply realistically old-fashioned in one of the most embarrassingly
sentimental, patronizingly ninnyish sort of
provincial ways. The photograph of him
on the cover of The Art of Happiness with a pair of carpet slippers on
his feet, a long-eared, soppy-looking pet dog on his lap, and a scruffy old
jacket thrown over his shoulders ... just about typifies the provincial
mentality of the author of such illustrious fictions as Penny and Tossie!
I do not want, however, to end this first biographical sketch on
a wholly negative note; for if Powys' novels have never made an agreeable
impression on me, I have at least retained some respect for The Meaning of Culture,
which - not excepting the biographical and polemical brilliance of Suspended
Judgements - is arguably his most accomplished philosophical work. Not that I can agree with everything or
indeed much of what is said in it. But
the style in which it was written still impresses me after so many years, and I
occasionally dip into it to savour English prose at or near its very best. He wrote this book in the
