- Paperback: 432 pages
- Publisher: The New York Review of Books, Inc (1 July 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0940322196
- ISBN-13: 978-0940322196
- Product Dimensions: 12.6 x 2.9 x 20.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,213,026 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
The Horse's Mouth, the third and most celebrated volume of Joyce Cary's First Trilogy, is perhaps the finest novel ever written about an artist. Its painter hero, the charming and larcenous Gulley Jimson, has an insatiable genius for creation and a no less remarkable appetite for destruction. Is he a great artist? a has-been? or an exhausted, drunken ne'er-do-well? He is without doubt a visionary, and as he criss-crosses London in search of money and inspiration the world as seen though his eyes appears with a newly outrageous and terrible beauty.
About the Author
In the words of his biographer, Alan Bishop, Joyce Cary (1888-1957) was 'a prolific, independent, wide-ranging writer with a place in three literatures (English, Irish, Nigerian) difficult to categorize because his writing integrates the traditional and experimental.' He was difficult to categorize which probably explains why his reputation is not more secure. However he was undoubtedly a major novelist of the twentieth century, and in acknowledgement of that Faber Finds is reissuing twelve of his works - Mister Johnson, Herself Surprised, To Be a Pilgrim, The Horse's Mouth, A Prisoner of Grace, Except the Lord, Not Honour More, Castle Corner, Charley is My Darling, A House of Children, The Moonlight and A Fearful Joy. The Horse's Mouth remains Joyce Cary's most famous novel but this extensive reissue programme will demonstrate to readers this is only one of many equally successful, challenging but entertaining works in his canon. Although never fashionable, Joyce Cary has always had his admirers: 'This novelist has exemplified the rule that when a writer dies, he or she may suffer a lapse in attention. You say to someone ''Joyce Cary'' and they say ''Who?''. Amazing! He was a marvellous writer, fresh, funny and popping with life.' Doris Lessing 'A splendid writer' John Updike 'Whenever I am idle I choose a Cary novel in the way that I might seek a friend's company, and it is not long before I am encouraged, inspired to write.' Paul Theroux 'To find a novelist who saw more deeply and conveyed more truly you have to go back to Dostoievsky and Tolstoy, Balzac and Goethe, Mann and Hesse . . . What makes him a life enhancer is the overwhelming sense the reader gets from him that the universe, for all its horrors and inexplicabilities, makes sense - obvious and glorious sense.' Bernard Levin
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I first read this book years ago, and at the time decided it was one of the best books I had ever read. A recent re-read confirms this, and I'm disappointed it didn't make the top 100 books in a recent "Great Reads" list I saw - it should have! This is a terrific tale of an artist at work, and is unusual in that Gulley Jimson goes into great detail about the creative process that inspires him. His descriptions of London are wonderful, and his story is funny, sad, and never dull - it races along, and the unpredictable twists and turns are always entertaining. Highly recommended.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I'm a fairly well-read chap. Why had I only vaguely heard of Joyce Cary and why had I never heard of this book until I stumbled across it in a charity shop? I think with the possible exception of Zola's 'L'Oeuvre' it's the best novel about the artistic life I've read, a stand-out work of English prose, undoubtedly a classic, and from my first glance inside I was unable to put it down until I'd finished it. It incidentally gave me more insight into painting than half a dozen textbooks.
We follow the ageing artist narrator, Gulley Jimson - impoverished, neglected, cynical about art and life but loving both, always ebullient, possibly a genius - as he plans a new masterpiece, tries to avoid jail or the doss-house, sees visions in the clouds over the Thames, spouts his beloved Blake, meets his old muse and re-lives old love affairs, tries to obtain patrons and disillusion wide-eyed admirers, schemes to get paint and canvas or a piece of wall he can call his own. His London is a pre-war proletarian one, but its inhabitants are smart, often self-educated, philosophical if not from inclination then from bitter necessity: a world of self-appointed preachers, street-corner prophets, parlour lecturers and barmaid stoics. Some of the tragedies that happen to them are almost unbearable, and the novel could be bleak as hell at times were it not for the protagonist's humour and urging of acceptance. Described thus baldly it doesn't sound as if it should be as gripping as a thriller, but it is; partly because tales of people hustling to get a shilling which could make all the difference between bounce-back and disaster always are, and partly because of the attraction of the central figure.
Gulley Jimson is a great and unique character, in some ways an archetype of the disreputable bohemian yet avoiding all the cliches. His narration has a dazzling energy, full of both poetry and momentum - there's more than a touch of Irish lyricism to the prose, or perhaps a sort of British-English version of the suppleness and invention someone like Chandler, say, or some of the Jewish writers invest American English with - it's relentlessly entertaining anyway and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. His enjoyment of life is infectious; his determination to accept all the kicks as they come and not to let anger or self-pity poison him is inspiring. Most of the loveable and charming rogues of literature are fairly loathsome at bottom, but Jimson in his joy, acceptance and love of life and mankind is a self-redemptive figure. All he wants to do in life is paint, but while he will - almost unconsciously, reflexively, often outrageously, sometimes self-destructively - steal, wheedle and cheat the wherewithal to do so from anyone he finds at hand, he is also willing, he feels obliged, he is unable to stop himself making time to fulfill the demands of friendship or common humanity.
All in all The Horse's Mouth is a great read and a high achievement. Don't be put off that it's ostensibly the third book in a trilogy - it's so complete in itself that I was startled as well as delighted when I found this out afterwards.
We follow the ageing artist narrator, Gulley Jimson - impoverished, neglected, cynical about art and life but loving both, always ebullient, possibly a genius - as he plans a new masterpiece, tries to avoid jail or the doss-house, sees visions in the clouds over the Thames, spouts his beloved Blake, meets his old muse and re-lives old love affairs, tries to obtain patrons and disillusion wide-eyed admirers, schemes to get paint and canvas or a piece of wall he can call his own. His London is a pre-war proletarian one, but its inhabitants are smart, often self-educated, philosophical if not from inclination then from bitter necessity: a world of self-appointed preachers, street-corner prophets, parlour lecturers and barmaid stoics. Some of the tragedies that happen to them are almost unbearable, and the novel could be bleak as hell at times were it not for the protagonist's humour and urging of acceptance. Described thus baldly it doesn't sound as if it should be as gripping as a thriller, but it is; partly because tales of people hustling to get a shilling which could make all the difference between bounce-back and disaster always are, and partly because of the attraction of the central figure.
Gulley Jimson is a great and unique character, in some ways an archetype of the disreputable bohemian yet avoiding all the cliches. His narration has a dazzling energy, full of both poetry and momentum - there's more than a touch of Irish lyricism to the prose, or perhaps a sort of British-English version of the suppleness and invention someone like Chandler, say, or some of the Jewish writers invest American English with - it's relentlessly entertaining anyway and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. His enjoyment of life is infectious; his determination to accept all the kicks as they come and not to let anger or self-pity poison him is inspiring. Most of the loveable and charming rogues of literature are fairly loathsome at bottom, but Jimson in his joy, acceptance and love of life and mankind is a self-redemptive figure. All he wants to do in life is paint, but while he will - almost unconsciously, reflexively, often outrageously, sometimes self-destructively - steal, wheedle and cheat the wherewithal to do so from anyone he finds at hand, he is also willing, he feels obliged, he is unable to stop himself making time to fulfill the demands of friendship or common humanity.
All in all The Horse's Mouth is a great read and a high achievement. Don't be put off that it's ostensibly the third book in a trilogy - it's so complete in itself that I was startled as well as delighted when I found this out afterwards.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Joyce Cary's novel is well known amongst academics as one of the finest novels ever written about the creative instinct. To the public at large, however, it is relatively unknown. Originally written as part of a trilogy which looked at events from the point of view of three different characters, The Horse's Mouth, a comic novel, is the most successful. The protagonist, Gulley Jimson, is an artist, and nothing else matters to him but the pursuit of his art. He will lie, cheat, steal - anything to get his hands on some canvas, or a wall, and some paint. Carey's prose is beautifully poetic, with painterly descriptions of london, interspersed with quotations from the artist's beloved Blake. Reading this novel really gives you a sense of what it might be like to inhabit the mind of a genius, or indeed anyone who is possessed by an all-encompassing obsession. That said, this is a comic novel, and there are laughs throughout the book. The laughter is often tragic, and the jokes are often profound. I really cannot recommend this book highly enough.
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