Friday 13 March 2009

A Reputation

Hugh Walpole was born on this day in 1884. His career stands as a salutary reminder of the fragility of literary reputation. A prolific, versatile and ambitious writer and an energetic (as we'd say now) 'networker', he built a huge popular and critical success in the Twenties, selling large numbers of books, while attracting the encouragement of Henry James and the praise of Joseph Conrad and Virginia Woolf, to say nothing of lesser critics. It was widely assumed that he was a major English novelist, a classic whose fame would last, and deluxe editions of his books were considered highly collectible. This was just as Walpole wanted it, and he was seriously put out when Hilaire Belloc named Wodehouse rather than him as the greatest English writer of the time. Not that this perceived slight did him any harm; it was Somerset Maugham who, arguably, dealt a real blow to his hopes of lasting fame, with his thinly disguised caricature of Walpole as the ruthlessly ambitious, superficial writer Alroy Kear in Cakes And Ale. Through the Thirties, the reputation of Sir Hugh, that giant of English letters, declined, to the point where he was already passing out of fashion by the time of his death in 1941. He continued to be read - indeed the volumes of his Herries Chronicle are still is print - but today his work is most likely to be found sitting neglected, in its handsome bindings, on the shelves of charity shops and junk shops, and his name is all but forgotten. Literary fame is a fickle mistress. Every age has its Hugh Walpoles - giants whose mighty, apparently secure reputations will barely outlast them. I wonder who are the Walpoles of our time?...

15 comments:

  1. The list is long but should include, inter alia, Anita Brookner, Julian Barnes, Will Self, Ian McEwen and Zadie Smith. Oh, and throw in JK Rowling.

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  3. JK Rowling? That's a brave prediction. No reason why Harry Potter shouldn't be immortal; he's already international which says something.

    You're probably right about the rest, Recusant, though I do like both McEwan and Barnes.

    Predicting the ones that will last is even harder. Rushdie for Midnight's Children; Peter Carey, maybe. JG Ballard even though I don't really like him. And Jeffrey Archer of course.

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  4. One could argue that every novelist now writing is a Walpole because we live in an age more conducive to non-fiction. That "abounding glittering jet" of creativity so often now means the one-trick pony and self-regarding committees of insiders. Modern art expos are pretty similar. If I want to fire up my imagination, I will pick up a biography or a history or travel book rather than a novel every time (poetry excepted). As to who will last, I hope genre writers get more recognition - folks like James Lee Burke or Elmore Leonard. A good book on Goya or the antics of Burke's Dave Robicheaux are infinitely preferable to enduring Gerhard Richter, Damien Hirst or a modern novel.

    I wonder where men like Hilaire Belloc are now? And G.K. Chesterton and, no doubt, some others of a similar kind. Rock solid and so often bang on the money decades later.

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  5. Careful Mark - Malty's a Richter fan (believe it or not)...

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  6. I wonder where men like Hilaire Belloc are now? And G.K. Chesterton and, no doubt, some others of a similar kind. Rock solid and so often bang on the money decades later.

    They're all on this blog, of course.

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  7. Brit

    Too true. Too true.

    Chesterton & Belloc might have been considered to be losing relevance ten years ago, but boy have they stormed back.

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  8. And they were no push-overs. Belloc used to sail the Channel in all weathers in an old (by our standards) wooden boat. The key item below decks was a large barrel of red wine. Actually she was a beautiful, unfailingly seaworthy craft. See here for one of the last few surviving examples still in use today.

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  9. Ian McEwan definitely. He speaks to a very particular time and so will be irrelevant in 50 years. i think it's often the case that those who are wildly popular for a few years, who speak to a great many people, are incomprehensible or just utterly dull to a later generation; they tap into the most superficial concerns of a culture, which mean people don't have to dig far to find things they like, but it also means they won't last.

    i suspect Rowling will last as long as people have this rather twee Etonian idea of England, which could well be for a while yet. i quite liked the first book, the only one i've read.

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  10. Did someone mention Jeff, he has a new bookie wook out apparently, about Mallory of all people, akin to Broon writing a book about success.
    Richters portraits are on show in Lunnen Mark, not his best work but worth the effort, go see his window in Koln's Dom, pure magic.

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  11. Amis the Younger. Most of the Yanks.

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  12. i suspect Rowling will last as long as people have this rather twee Etonian idea of England

    Elberry - Isn't it rather that the secret of Potter's appeal, like all the most successful children's books, is in creating a coherent and desirable world for escapism? (In the books, Hogwarts exists as an escape from the drab, chav world of the Dursleys.) So there's no need for a rather twee idea of England, just a rather twee ideal.

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  13. Walpole got bashed about quite a bit in his time. Stella Gibbon dedicated "Cold Comfort Farm" to Walpole under the name "Anthony Pookworthy, Esq. A.B.S., L.L.B" (e.g., Associate Back Scratcher and Licensed Log Roller).

    Wodehouse had a few unkind things to say about Walpole as well, as reproduced in his letters in "Performing Flea". Apparently, Walpole would regularly rank his friends, and PGW speculated that when he declined an invitation to go on a trip with him, he was sent down to #50 or so, or struck off entirely.

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  14. I do not recall who said it (though I think it was Hazlitt but may be wrong on that account), but we are advised to understand that writers must survive at least two generations before they can be considered immune to historical erasure and worthy of reading. In many ways, that is good advice for readers who must make decisions about which authors are worth reading. D. G. Myers at A Commonplace Blog has a cut-off line of ten years and says we should not read anything that is less than ten years old, but I think two generations is a better boundary. The two-generation rule, of course, will eliminate many of those writers suggested by contributors to this threaded discussion. In fact, I imagine that Rowling, James Lee Burke, Elmore Leonard, Zadie Smith, and Ian McEwan will disappear from bookstores and libraries well before two generations have passed. On the other hand, Rushdie will properly survive.

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