The New Compass: A Critical Review
[Home]
[About TNC] [Current Issue] [Archive] [Editorial Board] [Submissions] [Contact]
Christianity and Criticism
“I
have to say that as a Christian I see no need to add anything to what Conrad
says to take Heyst as an answer to prayer in both cases, and angelic in the
strictest biblical sense of a messenger and agent of the divine.”
—
But why need we know what our critic
thinks about the literal truth or otherwise of the fictional character’s role
in the novel, whether that is, if the novel were real-life, he would consider
Heyst to be, literally, an angel?
Interesting as it might be to know our critic’s private opinions, can
they be any more relevant to our understanding of his criticism than if the
novelist himself were to include in his narrative an interjection to the effect
that he, too, was a Christian, or not a Christian, or whatever? In point of fact, the novel of course leaves
the question open, as it would have to do, not being itself a portion of sacred
scripture. Even if Heyst were part of
that “touch of allegory” (more like a firm pressure, I should say), his being,
in the novel, literally an angel and the answer to a prayer wouldn’t help close
that question. The novel is quite
clear: the world as pictured in Victory is, unfamiliar in many senses as
it might be to us, the world as pictured by a mind that, intensely gripped by
the struggle between moral good and moral evil, and tempted by the idea that
evil can be evaded by a sort of fastidious personal detachment from
participating in that world (refraining from “action”), is a mind that retains,
throughout the novel (whatever it might do in another context and at another
time), its freedom from creedal commitment.
Not to respect that independence by a claim that we know better what the
man means seems to me an example of the dark side of “belief.”
For me, what is most striking about Victory
is the conversion of Heyst’s unbelief, not in God or Jesus Christ or in any
other creed, but in Life, to its opposite: “Ah, Davidson, woe to the man whose
heart has not learned while young to hope, to love, and to put its trust in
life!” And that belief reminds me much
more strongly of what I find in D.H. Lawrence (and Leavis) than in the New
Testament; and I notice that Mr. Robinson does not include Lawrence’s name,
with those of Conrad and James as the “latest novelist(s) of Christendom.” So be it.
But Conrad and James and Lawrence do seem to me to belong to the great
tradition.
Heyst’s virtues: his charity towards
Morrison, his salvation of Lena, not to mention his friendship with Davidson
and his impeccable good manners, which are themselves an expression of his
genuine refinement (his respect for others as well as a technique, which fails,
for avoiding “action”) are not especially Christian, yet Mr. Robinson writes
“Heyst the skeptic is unable to resist the temptation of his Christian
impulses.” This is absurd. Even if one chooses to say, as I do not,
that “there is a path from pity towards loving one’s neighbour as oneself,” the
Christian will know that that injunction is not sui generis
Christian. Mr. Robinson well says “I
have to emphasize how theological Conrad’s treatment of this theme (victory)
is, and that this is the way his inspiration developed.” He then cites “the Christ-like
self-sacrificing love of Lena.” What,
other than the capacity to risk her life out of love for Heyst, which is a love
perhaps best defined by the words “with my body I thee worship,” is this
love? Surely Mr. Robinson’s is a most
extravagant claim. Christ’s sacrifice
amounted to much more than that; nor, incidentally, was Lena’s death
inevitable, being shot by mistake, though Mr. Jones would probably have been
pleased with the accident. Heyst’s
being a good man (Christ died for sinners, after all), and Lena having learnt
about sin at Sunday school hardly qualifies her heroic death to be described as
Christ-like. “Theological” seems to me
to be a big word for Mr. Robinson to use for Conrad’s treatment of his theme,
despite the allegorical framework of the story. What I am suggesting is that, rather than giving the novel a
distinctive Christian message, this framework serves an aesthetic rather than a
religious purpose. Whilst it recalls to
our minds certain biblical conceptions, which enhance what Mr. Robinson calls
the “comedy” and intensify the drama, it introduces a metaphysical dimension
which deepens our awareness of the unfolding horror, being indeed that of sin
and death. But the framework remains, I
think, external to the novel’s underlying conception, as though the writer were
playing, though not facetiously with the metaphysical ideas, to impress the
actual moral idea upon us. The
inspiration of the novel is, I would say, moral rather than religious, unless
you can call the intensity of the author’s moral concern itself religious, though
not specifically Christian. Heyst in
any case dies by his own hand, having created a kind of Hindu funeral pyre of
his bungalow, consumed together with his beloved “wife.” No Christian would do that and no Christian
novelist would refer to it with the neutrality or even admiration that Conrad
does.
Mr. Robinson purports to show, not
only that Conrad’s “treatment” is theological, but “that this is the way his
inspiration developed.” I can’t say I
am quite sure what he means by the latter desideratum, but his examination of
the novel goes on to note a series of Christian/ theological issues, like
references to Heyst’s angelic attributes, the nature of miracles, and that Lena
and Heyst are both “steadily allusive” to the scriptures. Now Lena is certainly a good deal closer to
what is ordinarily meant by a “Christian,” to the Christian doctrine shall we
say, than is Heyst. He, as the son of
his philosopher father, has conscientiously rejected it, but Lena thinks her
irregular relationship with Heyst makes her a sinner. As for him, he is sublimely confident that he is not, which he
asserts “before Heaven.” Lucky
man! Mr. Robinson shares his confidence
in what I would call a very modern spirit.
I have already given my opinion of the allegorical overlay that follows
in the examination.
Now it seems to me that Lena is
indeed the Christian of the book, and quite properly a sinner, who, because she
is a Christian, suffers for her sins, while Heyst rambles blindly through the world
doing, now and again, nevertheless, the right thing. Of course, he is into the bargain a very attractive man, as an
officer and a gentleman should be, let alone a Swedish baron; but he is
manifestly of the world, a man whose retreat from the world can be seen as a
gentlemanly eccentricity. If Mr.
Robinson had simply said “God seems to have chosen such a man as His
instrument,” we could have taken that as meaning that there is such a thing as
good and evil in the world, and that now and again a good man or woman stands
up to resist the evil. Which could be
said without confessing to any particular creed, just as, I believe, Heyst’s
“before heaven” is meant non-creedaly.
But Mr. Robinson, like the rest of us, including Conrad, can’t help
finding Heyst a more interesting character than Lena, because perhaps of his
intelligence, but, speaking for myself, I should say because of his gentlemanly
charm which rises in the end to heroism and self-sacrifice. Mr. Robinson labels this as Christian. I consider that a liberty. Similarly, “Heyst is not an ‘infidel,’ as
in that now quaint Victorian terminology Morrison denies himself to be: he only
thinks he is.” This reminds me of the
Mormon practice of baptizing one’s “infidel” ancestors whose names they discover
in genealogical tables. All it amounts
to saying is that Heyst is a good man, who defies evil but fails to save the
woman he loves from it. Upon which,
finding he has nothing else to live for, he sets fire to his own house in which
her body lies and dies with her. Well,
yes, that is the action of a man whose love was genuine, probably. But the action of a Christian?
Of course, Lawrence’s dictum, from
which Mr. Robinson derives the liberty to shut his ears to what the author says
and pay attention only to what he finds in the tale, is sound; but there are
two lessons we might draw from that: (1) That it would be best for the critic
to stick to his criticism and stop filling our ears with wise Christian saws,
like “God does move in a mysterious way His wonders to perform,” or “for them
that have ears to hear,” or “all things work together for good to them that
love God,” etc. This is Christian
criticism in the sense of preaching by means of defiant reiteration; and (2)
There is no guarantee that, if you listen only to the tale, you will hear what
it really says. Of course, Mr. Robinson
knows that as a first principle, but does he not think that to keep insisting
on his own Christian belief is not likely to distract some of his readers from
the possible truth of his criticism itself?
Finally, Mr. Robinson advises us to
savour this “packed” novel and to take it slowly. Perhaps he has in mind something like those “strange
high-sounding phrases whose implications are deliberately left unclear” (C.B.
Cox), though not as a subject for pejorative criticism, as Leavis used to
say. Next time I read the novel I hope
to pay more attention to them myself, but I certainly found myself floundering
through them in the long dialogue between Heyst and Lena which is clearly meant
to establish their love, or at any rate to articulate it. But perhaps it doesn’t matter what they
mean: it is clearly a language of love of some sort, spoken by a reticent,
scrupulous man and a fairly inarticulate, cautious woman intellectually out of
her depth. Then there is the cat-like
Ricardo. Our author can barely mention
him without reiterating his various cat-like features and characteristics, not
to speak of that “hairy” brute that is Pedro (for whom I personally feel
sorry). Nevertheless, even if yet
another reading doesn’t redeem some of the seeming blemishes, I rejoice to
concur with Mr. Robinson that “at the last it becomes gripping and painfully
moving.” Unlike him, on this reading I
did not cry but I did have a lump in my throat, whether a true sign of the
book’s merit or of my approaching old age I do not know. But I cannot resist the urge to shout from
the rooftops the joy I experienced in reading Part One of the novel. I felt I was reading a prose version of
Shakespeare’s sensuous dramatic poetry at its most intense: “that power which
embodies feeling and animates matter” (Johnson). It was especially welcome as I had just thrown aside the work of
a famous novelist of the 1960s, which had rendered me very sick at heart.
Mencher, Barrie. “Christianity and
Criticism: A Reply to Ian Robinson on Conrad’s Victory.” The New
Compass: A Critical Review 3 (June 2004)
<http://www.thenewcompass.ca/jun2004/mencher.html>