The sea lost nothing
of the swallowing identity of its great outer mass of waters in the emphatic,
individual character of each particular wave. Each wave, as it rolled in upon
the high-pebbled beach, was an epitome of the whole body of the sea, and
carried with it all the vast mysterious quality of the earth’s ancient
antagonist. – page 1 (When I collected these words to include in this
reflection, I started to read the book all over again!)
The realm of John
Cowper Powys is dangerous. The reader may wander for years in this parallel
universe, entrapped and bewitched, and never reach its end. There is always
another book to discover, another work to reread. Like Tolkien, Powys has
invented another country, densely peopled, thickly forested, mountainous,
erudite, strangely self-sufficient. This country is less visited than
Tolkien's, but it is as compelling, and it has more air.—Margaret Drabble The Guardian, The English Degenerate, August 11, 2006
John Cowper Powys is adored by a loyal type of reader who
once they’ve found him will be forever grateful, yet he is often scorned by
other readers with the trite accusation “Nothing
happens!” Indeed, reading Powys is like taking a long rambling walk through
a landscape—if you enjoy lingering over mosses and funguses, meadows and forests,
absorbing birdsong, the wind through the trees, the rattle of pebbles on the
beach, and becoming immersed in mysticism, psychology, and the legends from
long ago, you will love Weymouth Sands.
It is enchanting—haunting—provocative; the complexities of
the human puzzle, made up of eccentric misfits and lonely monsters. There is a
beautiful sense of place, the wonders of nature, the transcendence of the
ordinary; the passionate love of home, the reassuring familiarity with
landmarks; obsessive-compulsive behaviors, emotionally overwrought to the point
of being tenderly maudlin. The epic longing for a cup of tea at most times
equals the yearning for the attentions of a woman, or the overwhelming desire
to cave in the head of the miserly richest man in town with a pebble stone—all this
in the day-to-day lives of the population of Weymouth. There is more going on
in the lives being lived—much of the antics of the residents could be
considered madness—and apparently, it’s chronic enough that a place dubbed “Hell’s Museum” exists. It is a place
where unsettling rumors about a laboratory in which vivisection is secretly performed
on dogs is a worrisome outrage that lingers in the back of most of their minds.
There are moments of bawdy comedy,
perverted and hilarious, that mesh with the intimate dramas disseminated
throughout this human document. No one’s perfect, on the surface they put on a
proper façade in order to exist in society (such as Perdita Wane, Magnus Muir,
and Mr. Gaul and the assorted elder ladies of the town), while some are clearly
of the “fuck it, I am what I am” sort
(such as Jobber Skald, the brothers Jerry and Sylvanus Cobbold, and Gipsy May) who
have embraced their nature and go about with a ‘come what may’ attitude.
Only he could write such a formidable tale with such intense
characters—he is a writer’s writer. The words flow from his pen, coming into
existence—Powys followed his bliss. Can you imagine, the constant vision, the
outpouring of thoughts, the compassion, the persistence, the intensity of his
mind (the exhaustion) to create everything he wrote? (I can.) Turning on the
creative spigots and leaving them on is a deluge with an understanding that
human nature is complicated and not everything is going to be resolved from
beginning to end—tho’ it is certain that Weymouth
Sands is a story in which a pebble stone starts out riding in the Jobber’s
pocket as a bludgeon with intent, to becoming a paper weight with a final
resting place—everything else that happens in between is incidental.
A few moments from the dog-eared pages.
How well he knew this
spot! It was one of those geographical points on the surface of the planet that
would surely rush into his mind when he came to die, as a concentrated essence
of all that life meant! –Page 10 (Magnus Muir)
…as if by the mere hugging
of her knees between her arms she could return to that unconscious state in
which twenty-six years ago she lay, an embryo-mite, before she was born into a
world like this; a world in which for a woman not to be beautiful, not to be
seductive and appealing, means after all a series of futile desperations, of
shifts and make-shifts, of pitiful and sorrowful turnings to the wall. (Perdita
Wane) Page 49
Sue Gadget suddenly
felt as if all the waves of the sea did not contain water enough to wash out
the pity and trouble and pain and weariness of being alive in this world.—page
578
For further indulgence you may enjoy this lovely website “tour”
of Powy’s Weymouth—I didn’t come upon it until after I finished reading the
book, upon finding it this morning, it confirmed my vision:
