Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4.0 out of 5 stars
"Time flies, death urges, knells call, heaven invites", 17 April 2009
One of the most popular poets of his time, William Cowper (1731-1800) changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. He suffered from periods of severe depression and although he found refuge in a fervent evangelical Christianity the inspiration behind his much-loved hymns, he often experienced doubt and feared that he was doomed to eternal damnation. Lynch brings Cowper irreverently to life in this novel set in 18th century England with all its social pretensions and religious fundamentalism. Unfortunately as Cowper looks back on his life all he can think of is his own fate and fragile mental condition: "to be despised is my destiny." Together with his young companion Mr. Johnson and housekeeper and employee the Miss Margaret Perowne, "a vinegary old whinger and a scold," William recounts his turbulent early years, the impotent bullying at school, the realization that he is different, and his friendship with his beautiful cousins Theadora and Harriet.
In addition to the wound left by his lost mother, Cowper also battles mental illness. His early life resembling a drug-fuelled type of madness and the gigantic demons of the night seemingly doing battle with his dwarfish anxieties of the everyday. Although he's the last to admit it, the visit to an apothecary to purchase some laudanum probably instigates many of the feverish nightmares. Cowper believed like everyone else, including himself that madness was at best a sign of moral weakness and at worst a criminal depravity. Even as Cowper falls into an association with The Reverend Unwin, it appears that his financial prospects are dim. Gaining a reputation for priggishness and irresponsibility, especially with money, an allowance comes quarterly from his father's estate. Although the fund is just about enough to support his sanity, his ailing brother always seems to be paying extra for the madness. Perhaps the heart of his problems is his battles with being an "unfortunate" "for someone of our sort, grief is constant." Even confessing the fact to Unwin's wife Mary who means the world to him, the two forming a semi-scandalous friendship, the middle-aged woman almost like an emotional buttress towards William's meager existence.
The only cloud on the horizon is Unwin's daughter Susanna who pores out her latest accusations to Mary, reproving her for not loving her father and the fact that she betrayed him and traded him for "the squire." Steeping his novel in Cowper's hymns and poetry, this sense and oblique tale constantly bursts with literary and religious allusions, the inns of Orchidside and the gentle towns of pastoral England bought seamlessly to life. With crackling good humor and a sharp wit, the author's rather wry rendition of English religious society dominates even as Cowper spends much of his life struggling with his relationships with women. Certainly a successful marriage is seen as the panacea for many of his problems, so it's not surprising then that he's drawn to an offer of marriage from Mary, their plutonic romance winning over all of the obstacles. As complex and detailed as the social mores that it reflects, this novel's bawdy humor and hint of a simpler and statelier time proves sometimes that the price of artistic fulfillment is a life of neurosis and sadness. Mike Leonard April 09.
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by P.D. James
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