The Trials Of A Poet

When we were last with Mr. Mulliner, he had been recounting the story of a synonymizing nephew. <1>  But George was not the only Mulliner to have had a keen interest in words.  In "Came The Dawn", Mr. Mulliner tells us of Lancelot, his versifying nephew.

II.

Jeremiah Briggs, Lancelot's uncle on his mother's side, and the owner of a successful pickle business, had sent young Lance to university, in the hopes that he would join the business once his studies were completed at Oxford.

Lancelot developed other vocational plans, however.  "'The fact is, uncle,' he said, 'I have mapped out a career for myself on far different lines. I am a poet.'  'A poet? When did you feel this coming on?'" <2>  Still, Briggs perseveres.  He reads aloud a commercial piece as example.  

Soon, soon all human joys must end:
Grim Death approaches with his sickle:
Courage! There is still time, my friend
To eat a Briggs's Breakfast Pickle.

With his poet's sensibility, perhaps Lancelot could compose something similar for Briggs's?

As it happens, Lance has come prepared.  "He began to read in a low, musical voice. 'Darkling (A Threnody). By L. Bassington Mulliner.'"  The threnody then commences,

[with]

Black branches
Like a corpse's withered hands

[to]

Doom
Dyspepsia
And Despair

[concluding with]

I am a despairing toad
I have got dyspepsia.

III.

Lancelot is unprepared for Mr. Briggs's reaction to the threnody. His uncle has the butler immediately throw Lance's person from his house.  In the course of "Came The Dawn", Lancelot will again have occasion to experience physical eviction from homes. The discomfort and indignation occasioned will be his. The experience of sweet hilarity, as often in Wodehouse, is ours.
__________
<1>"Wodehouse the Shorter, the Compact, the Concise". BMT, February 2014.
<2>Wodehouse, P.G. "Came The Dawn". Meet Mr. Mulliner. 2008 Edition: Arrow Books, London.

Brooklyn Bound

Brooklyn (John Crowley, 2015) often plays as if it's from another time.  Being set in the Fifties of the twentieth century, you might think the impression derives from close attention to period detail. But not only so.  A romantic melodrama that is lovely to look at, Brooklyn brings both Ford and Sirk to mind.

II.

Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan) lives with her mother (Jane Brennan) and sister Rose (Fiona Glascott), in County Wexford, Ireland.  The year is 1951, and young Eilis is unable to find suitable employment.  It's arranged that Eilis travel by sea to the United States, and take a job in a Brooklyn department store.

Living in a women's boarding house in America, Eilis learns to cope with homesickness.  Soon, she meets Tony Fiorello (Emory Cohen), who becomes Eilis's boyfriend. 

Then, suddenly, Eilis receives the terrible news that her sister Rose has died from an illness.  She makes the necessary plans to be with her family in Ireland.  Eilis assures Tony the trip is only a visit. He doesn't let her leave without their being married in civil court, however.

Back in Ireland, circumstances build that have Eilis debating whether she should return to the United States.  A local employment opportunity better than her Brooklyn job opens up for Eilis.  And charming bachelor Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson) takes her notice.

Will the appeals and ties of belonging that Ireland is asserting on Eilis, as her birthplace, sway her from returning to America?  Or will she keep to her marital vows with Tony, and sail back to Brooklyn?

III.

With a fine cast led by Saoirse Ronan, John Crowley's 
Brooklyn makes its way to the present, with the past.