Penelope Fitzgerald and the Consolation of Fiction

310 Pages·2016·1.672 MB·English

by  Christopher J. Knight

Penelope Fitzgerald and the
Consolation of Fiction
Christopher J. Knight’s Penelope Fitzgerald and the Consolation of Fiction
is a study of the British author Penelope Fitzgerald (1916–2000), attend-
ing to her nine novels, especially as viewed through the lens both of “late
style” (she published her first novel, The Golden Child, at age sixty) and,
in her words, of “consolation, that is, for doubts and fears as well as for
naked human loss.” As in Shakespeare’s late, religiously inflected, romances,
the two concerns coincide; and Fitzgerald’s ostensible comedies are marked
by a clear experience of the tragic and the palpable sense of a world that
verges on the edge of indifference to human loss. Yet Fitzgerald, her late
age pessimism notwithstanding, seeks (with the aid of her own religious
understandings), in each of her novels, to wrestle meaning, consolation and
even comedy from circumstances not noticeably propitious. Or as she her-
self memorably spoke of her own “deepest convictions”: “I can only say that
however close I’ve come, by this time, to nothingness, I have remained true
to my deepest convictions—I mean to the courage of those who are born
to be defeated, the weaknesses of the strong, and the tragedy of misunder-
standings and missed opportunities, which I have done my best to treat as
a comedy, for otherwise how can we manage to bear it?” The recipient of
Britain’s Booker Prize and America’s National Book Critics Circle Award,
Penelope Fitzgerald’s reputation as a novelist, and author more generally,
has grown, since her death, significantly, to the point that she is now widely
judged one of Britain’s finest writers, comparable in worth to the likes of
Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf.
Christopher J. Knight is Professor in the Department of English at the
University of Montana, USA.
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Penelope Fitzgerald and the
Consolation of Fiction
Christopher J. Knight
First published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 Christopher J. Knight
The right of Christopher J. Knight to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
CIP data has been applied for.
ISBN: 978-1-472-48701-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-45101-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by codeMantra
In loving memory of my father, Robert W. Knight (1928–2014)
Let despair be known
as my ebb-tide; but let prayer
have its springs, too, brimming,
disarming him; discovering somewhere
among his fissures deposits of mercy
where trust may take root and grow.
—R. S. Thomas, “Tidal”
When the cares of my heart are many,
Thy consolations cheer my soul.
—Psalms 94.19 (Revised Standard Version)
Contents
Abbreviations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: “Music at the close” 1
1 The Golden Child and the anxious
relation to detective fiction 47
2 The second saddest story: Despair, belief, and
moral perseverance in The Bookshop 64
3 Offshore: “Between the Hither and the Farther Shore” 81
4 Human Voices: Voice, truth, and human fortitude 102
5 At Freddie’s, or “All my pretty ones” 136
6 Innocence: An allegory of fall; or perspectival
judgment on innocence and happiness 156
7 The Beginning of Spring: Resisting “Irreligious Triviality” 178
8 Concerning the unpredictable: The Gate of Angels
and the challenge to modern religious belief 204
9 The Blue Flower and a world elsewhere 236
Conclusion: “The Gift of Death” 259
Works cited 273
Index 289
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Abbreviations
Penelope Fitzgerald
The Afterlife: Essays and Criticism A
The Gate of Angels GA
The Knox Brothers KB
“The Literature of Detection” LD
The Means of Escape ME
So I Have Thought of You: The Letters of Penelope Fitzgerald L
Hermione Lee
Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life PF
Novalis
Philosophical Writings PW