"He recited his favourite poetry at inordinate length," or, Byron and Boswell at table

This afternoon while enjoying Edna O'Brien's fun, gossipy Byron in Love: A Short Daring Life (2009)*, I was struck by one of the few mundane scenes in Lord Byron's whole sordid life, his first meeting with the parents of his wife-to-be, Annabella Milbanke. After dithering in ridiculous fashion** for nearly two months following the acceptance of his proposal, Byron finally set out for the Milbanke family seat in the "God-forsaken hamlet" of Seaham, where--having arrived two days later than even his amended schedule had led the family to expect--for one evening he acted the part of a typical prospective son-in-law:

Yet he rallied at dinner, listened to Sir Ralph's stockpile of jokes, familially known as "pothooks," jokes about fleas and frogs and electioneering and a shoulder of mutton.

Given the horrors he would soon inflict on Annabella, and the countless other lives he ruined through the years, it's rare that one has much sympathy for Byron; however, imagining a hoary, time-worn "leg of mutton" joke following hard on the heels of a similar joke about a flea--all laid atop a gout-inducing English dinner--does elicit at least a cringing twinge of that emotion.

The scene stood out in part because it reminded me of another, much worse account of dinners endured by James Boswell. In late November of 1786, Boswell was pleasantly surprised when a representative of Lord Lonsdale, one of the richest and most powerful men in the kingdom, asked him to come to Carlisle to serve as counsel for the Lord in the upcoming election; Boswell, hoping to secure Lonsdale as a political patron, jumped at the chance. He arrived in Carlisle, where he met Lonsdale, and--as Adam Sisman recounts in his wonderful Boswell's Presumptuous Task (2000),

Lonsdale received Boswell courteously, and . . . they dined with half a dozen others in a local public house. Lonsdale did all the talking. Three of his MPs were present, all of whom were utterly quiet. . . . Boswell dined with Lonsdale every day, and every day the pattern was the same. Lonsdale harangued, and when anyone ventured to speak, even to express agreement, Lonsdale silenced him, ordering, "You shall hear." One of Lonsdale's cronies whistled like a bird when Lonsdale treated him with contempt. No private conversation was tolerated. He snapped at a servant who made a noise. He declaimed forcefully on subjects of his own choosing, and recited his favourite poetry at inordinate length. Boswell was struck by the force of Lonsdale's physiognomy, his utterance, his memory. He perceived that several of his fellow-diners took refuge in sleep. Lonsdale himself sometimes appeared to doze off, though Boswell was warned not to relax his guard, as this could be a pretence.

Believe it or not--and Sisman deserves praise for structuring his telling this way--it gets worse:

Lonsdale surrounded himself with hangers-on, all dependent on him, united in fear and greed. Boswell was amazed when Lonsdale at a whole plate of fresh oysters without offering anybody else one. Most insulting of all, Lonsdale denied his guests wine, while drinking it himself. When a new guest naively asked for some white wine, Lonsdale replied, "No. That has never been asked for here."

At those moments, how dreadfully stark must have been the contrast between Boswell's present company and that of his late friend Dr. Johnson! Is it any wonder that when he limped back home after a month in Lonsdale's clutches he once again summoned up the energy to dive back into work on his Life?

Boswell the Spy

{James Boswell, engraving by E. Finden after a sketch by George Langton.}

I wrote briefly yesterday about James Boswell's genius for self-promotion. The following passage in Adam Sisman's Boswell's Presumptuous Task will give you a good idea of his skill--and shamelessness--in that arena. Following legal studies in Utrecht, Boswell set out on a European tour, in the course of which he befriended Rousseau and Voltaire, and which closed with a visit to Corsica, an island whose recent overthrow of its Genoese rulers, followed by its annexation by France, had caught the English imagination. While on the island, Boswell met and befriended the deposed Corsican ruler, General Pasquale Paoli--who initially though Boswell was a spy because of his note-taking. That suspicion must have planted an idea, for

As [Boswell] made his way back through Europe, he sent a series of unsigned letters to an English newspaper. These anonymous letters, a skilful blend of fact and fantasy purporting to come from a correspondent with insider intelligence, suggested that Boswell's visit to Corsica might have profound consequences. Corsica was described as being of strategic importance to Great Britain; Boswell, they hinted, was more than a tourist; he was in fact on a secret mission. The letters alluded to clandestine negotiations, concealed papers, and diplomatic intrigues. The Genoese were said to be seriously alarmed by Boswell's activities. One letter even suggested that he had gone to the island to explore the romantic possibility of establishing the Stuart line on the throne of Corsica (a rumour which rendered [Boswell's father] Lord Auchinleck apoplectic.) This was all nonsense, of course, but it was effective in whipping up public sympathy for the cause of Corsican independence. It also served to publicize the book about his travels which Boswell planned to write. Boswell was pleased to portray himself as a man of both mystery and importance.

Boswell's subterfuge worked: his Account of Corsica (1768) sold out three printings and was translated into four other languages, while Boswell himself became a celebrity, accosted by strangers wanting to meet "Corsican Boswell."

While Boswell's actions in sending the letters, though brazen, are understandable (and really not that different from contemporary viral marketing), another component of his Corsican adventures, described well by Sisman, provides a better example of the combination of self-importance, vainglory, and absurdity that make Boswell such an irresistible figure:

Boswell decided he should share his Corsican expertise. He sought an interview with [former Prime Minister William] Pitt, still an influential figure in Parliament though he had been out of office since 1761. Pitt replied to Boswell's request by suggesting that a meeting with the current Secretary of State might be more effective. But Boswell would not be denied: the opportunity to appeal personally to the Friend of Liberty was irresistible. He was ushered into the statesman's presence dressed as a native Corsican chief, armed with stiletto and Paoli's pistols in his belt, and wearing a cap complete with a tuft of cock's feathers. It was a ludicrous display--though perhaps no more ludicrous than Byron dressing in Greek costume half a century later. Pitt received Boswell politely enough. Later Boswell appeared at Garrick's spectacular Shakespeare Jubilee in Stratford-upon-Avon wearing the same outfit.

Were I as self-dramatizing as Boswell, I'd explain now that I'll be away from the blog for a few days on a secret mission; since I'm not, however, I'll admit that it's just a visit to my grandparents. I'll leave you with a recommendation, a question, and a note of thanks.

The Recommendation
Check out Jenny D's recent post at Light Reading that features entertaining excerpts from Lord Byron's letters.

The Question
Boswell wasn't really a spy, but there have been quite a few English writers through the years who were. Kit Marlowe (maybe), Graham Greene, and Ian Fleming come immediately to mind. But who else?

The Note of Thanks
Saturday marks the end of the second year of I've Been Reading Lately. Three hundred-forty-five posts and I'm still enjoying it. I hope you are, too. Thanks for reading.

Norman Mailer and Boswell fistfight in heaven

{Norman Mailer, by Carl Van Vechten, 1948.}

From "A Review of My Contemporaries," by Neal Pollack, collected in The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature (2000)

"Bring it, Mailer," I said. "Give me your best shot."

He launched himself at me like a jackal that had skipped breakfast. He grabbed my shoulders. I slipped in a pool of blood and saliva, momentarily dazed by the swirl of lights and smoke and laughter.

Mailer threw punches and kicked at my groin. I struggled, feeling, for the first time in my literary career, pure terror. My arms were leaden, my legs unhelpful.

"Die forever in hell!" said my eternal adversary.

"Four hundred dollars on Mailer!" I heard from the crowd.

Though I think of Neal Pollack as pretty much a one-joke writer, I do enjoy the above piece, wherein he engages in a rough-and-tumble fistfight with the literary giants of Mailer's generation, finishing by besting Mailer himself. It's the one time when Pollack's faux arrogance seems appropriately deployed, reducing the whole question of literary greatness to a goofy gladiatorial bout, fueled by the same mix of self-promotion and pugnacity that defined Mailer nearly as much as his writing. The obituaries for Mailer this week have been full of similarly ridiculous stories of fistfights and rages; my favorite is this one from the Telegraph in which his fists prevail, but he is defeated nevertheless:

Seven years later, at a party, he threw a glass at [Gore Vidal] and, by some accounts, including Vidal's ("I saw this tiny fist coming at me"), punched him. Still on the floor, Vidal announced: "Words fail Norman Mailer. Yet again."

Aside from a bewildered high school reading of Tough Guys Don't Dance (the only Mailer our local library owned), I've actually read very little of Mailer's writing. Every time I think I might want to read him, what stops me is thinking of this exchange from Murray Kempton's account of the 1968 Democratic Convention in his "The Decline and Fall of the Democratic Party." Mailer is arguing that they must force Mayor Daley's hand, make him to take an action that will register with everyone as inexcusable:

"Why is it," [Mailer] said to me, "that I have never hit you? it is because you represent the face of decency." I thought, first, that he might have chosen a better example, second, that such distinctions among faces cannot have inhibited Norman at every moment in his prior experience, and, last, that I must explain to my son that the recognition that you are in the presence of a truly large personage is not hampered but completed when you understand that you can laugh at him a little. I said none of these things and went on listening. We must raise the ante, Norman continued, we must make him hit the face of decency.

Kempton goes on to get at exactly why I find Mailer's public persona uncongenial, despite all the undeniable intermingled good qualities:

Norman said that if I would go alone, I had more guts than he did. And I wondered again, as I often did, how insubstantialities like guts can worry men so much more intelligent than I. I remember the war and its few patrols, and that acceptance of death that occasional soldiers know just once or twice and real soldiers know many times before it kills them. I remember coming out of the hills in that state of peace possible only to a man when he has known the enemy, and assured that I would never again fear gunfire. Then I was asleep in my tent, and some lonely Japanese Betty came over and began firing those silly white tracers and I, with nothing to fear, ran panting, almost gibbering, from tree to tree. The one thing that guts is not is a quality that can be depended on. That is why it is useless continually to test it, because there is always a time when it fails almost anyone. Bravery is irrelevant; unless you have the dangerous good fortune of not knowing you are in danger, the trick is to anticipate; as often as not, you will act badly any time you are surprised. Dignity, not courage, is all anyone can hope to keep; how odd that Mailer should so little understand his life as not to see that one of its more significant achievements has not come from its tests of his bravery but from its continual salvage of dignity intact.

Though I don't have the personal experience with danger that Kempton uses to back up his position, I am with him in being confused by those worries about toughness. The more that I associate Mailer with such questions, the less interested I am in reading him; whether that's secretly fueling my dislike of his prose style as well is an open question. But I am willing to be told that I'm mistaken, and I've not given up on the idea of finding something of real value in his work. My friend Erin swears by The Executioner's Song, which she's read many times (maybe even many times in succession back in high school?), so I have it on my shelves awaiting the right day.

Tonight as I was reading about Adam Sisman's Boswell's Presumptious Task: The Making of "The Life of Dr. Johnson" (2000), I was reminded of one of the most notorious episodes of Mailer's life, his championing of convicted killer Jack Abbott. Abbott's letters to Mailer had convinced the writer of his repentance; Mailer helped him publish a prison memoir, then he advocated for Abbott's release. Six weeks after being paroled, Abbott murdered a man. Mailer later described the incident as "another episode in my life in which I can find nothing to cheer about or nothing to take pride in."

The Abbott case came to mind while I was reading about James Boswell's legal career. Having grudgingly acceded to his father's wishes and begun to practice law in Edinburgh, Boswell quickly

acquired a reputation for defending the hopeless and the helpless: drunken soldiers, forgers, horse-thieves, and sheep-stealers, rioters, brawlers, arsonists, the poor and the needy, clients that other, more prudent advocates avoided.

To his great credit, Boswell vigorously defended his clients, in the process sabotaging (perhaps intentionally?) his long-term career prospects. He grew particularly attached to his first criminal client, John Reid, who stood accused of the capital crime of stealing sheep. He succeeded in getting Reid acquitted, but eight years later Reid faced a similar charge and

Despite Boswell's advocacy being conducted "in a very masterly and pathetic manner"--so much so that he was applauded by several members of the jury when they convened at a tavern afterwards--Reid was this time found guilty.

Overwrought, and presumably feeling the sentence of death a grave injustice, Boswell huddled with Reid in his cell for hours, then walked with him to the gallows:

Desperate to save Reid's life, he planned to have the body cut down, carried into a stable, and there resuscitated with the aid of a surgeon. But when the moment came, Reid was beyond recall. This failure, and the pity Boswell felt for his hapless client, affected him deeply--though it must be admitted that he relished the drama of the occasion.

Though the cases are, to be honest, not all that similar--it's hard to view Boswell's actions in a very bad light--the commitment and determination of both Boswell and Mailer are undeniable. And though I'm not sure I'd have made the connection had I not just been reading Mailer obits, the men resemble each other in other ways, too: their genius for unrelenting self-promotion, their vanity (that presumably hid self-doubt), and their seemingly insatiable hunger for the spotlight.

What would they have made of each other? How likely is it that, like Vidal and Mailer, Jimmy Breslin and Mailer, the world and Mailer, they would have come to blows?