Table Of ContentJOYCE CARY
A Reappraisal
JOYCE CARY
A Reappraisal
Dennis Hall
© Dennis Hall 1983
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1983 978-0-333-31096-0
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without permission
First published 1983 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
London and Basingstoke
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-1-349-17279-5 ISBN 978-1-349-17277-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-17277-1
Typeset by
Wessex Typesetters Ltd, Frome, Somerset
To my wife, Kit
Contents
Priface lX
Acknowledgements
X
List of Abbreviations
Xl
1 Introduction 1
2 The Saving of Aissa 14
3 Immaturity and Ignorance 22
4 The Permanent in Nature 62
5 The Need for Justification 99
6 Salvation 128
7 In Conclusion 151
Notes 154
Select Bibliography 157
Index 162
Vll
Preface
This book, which has grown out of my beliefthatjoyce Cary is an
unreliable guide to the meaning of his own work, began its life as
my PhD thesis, which was accepted in the summer of 1978.
I am happy to acknowledge my indebtedness to Philip Y arker
of King's College, London, who supervised me and gave me much
good advice, to the Central Research Fund of the University of
London, which gave me a grant in connection with my initial
research, and to Brighton Polytechnic, where I teach, which
supported both the thesis and the book with time and money. I
should also like to thank my colleague, Joy Higginson, who read
parts of my earliest drafts and made many valuable comments,
and, above all, my wife, who not only supported and sustained me
throughout as only a good wife can, but also gave me great
assistance with the tedious business of checking typescripts and
proofs. I am grateful to them all.
I have, of course, been careful to acknowledge indebtedness
wherever I have been aware of it. Should there be any omissions, I
offer my apologies and assurances of good intent in the hope they
will be accepted.
Joyce Cary's work has stubbornly refused to die, yet his reputa
tion has failed to grow, largely because, as I remember being told
on one occasion, 'You don't know where to have him.' This book
is an attempt to determine where he really stands, and I hope that
it will at least provide fresh material for debate.
Hurstpierpoint D.P.H.
West Sussex
lX
Acknowledgements
The author and publishers wish to thank Curtis Brown Ltd, on
behalf of the Joyce Cary Estate, for permission to quote the
extracts from To Be a Pilgrim, Prisoner of Grace and The Captive and
the Free; Mrs Winnifred Davin for permission to quote from Joyce
Cary's unpublished works; and the Bodleian Library for permis
sion to examine the James Osborne Collection of Joyce Cary's
papers.
X
List of Abbreviations
Joyce Cary's novels, in order of publication:
AS Aissa Saved ( 1932)
AV AnAmerican Visitor (1933)
AW The African Witch (1936)
Mj Mister johnson (1939)
CD Charley Is My Darling ( 1940)
HC A House of Children ( 1941)
HS Herself Surprised ( 1941)
TBP To Be a Pilgrim ( 1942)
HM The Horse's Mouth (1944)
TM The Moonlight ( 1946)
Fj A Fearful Joy ( 1949)
PC Prisoner of Grace ( 1952)
EL Except the Lord ( 1953)
NHM Not Honour More ( 1955)
CF The Captive and the Free (1959)
Page references are always to the Carfax editions, save for Except
the Lord, when the references are to the Standard edition of 1953,
there being no Carfax edition of the work.
Xl
1 Introduction
This book is based upon the belief that the biggest obstacle to the
understanding of the novels of Joyce Cary is Joyce Cary. He
regarded himself as a man with a message. He believed that he
was conveying it in his books. He was distressed that nobody
seemed able to realise what it was and, towards the end of his life,
sought to explain, at first in various articles and interviews and
finally in Art and Reality. Presumably he died satisfied that he had
made his point at last. Certainly, one hopes so.
To me, however, his explanations are not always helpful, and in
certain respects obscure the issue rather than darify it. As I see it,
there were two Joyce Carys. One of them was the thinker who,
puzzled as we all are by the phenomenon of human existence and
needing a faith to live by, succeeded after several years of intense
effort in producing a creed that, so far as he was concerned,
accounted for that phenomenon satisfactorily. The other was the
artist who produced the novels and who, in certain important
respects, had different ideas. He knew, for example, that there is
no satisfactory explanation. Cary himself was not aware of this. It
never occurred to him that his novels might not-did not, if I am
right-fully match his consciously held ideas and that his explana
tion of their meaning might therefore be misleading. He knew
what he meant to do, and he was convinced that he was doing it.
Having said this, I want to emphasise that I do not believe that
Cary the novelist was entirely at variance with Cary the thinker,
or that the latter's ideas should be disregarded altogether. On the
contrary, a knowledge of the essential points of Cary's thinking is
a valuable and sometimes necessary tool for the interpretation of
his works. It is a fault of his method that he sometimes succeeded
so well in his avowed intention ofkeeping the subjective viewpoint
from which he was writing out of his books that there is no means
of knowing what it is without reference to his thinking. The point
is that Cary was not an impressive metaphysical thinker and he
did not always realise the implications of his thought. He needed
l
