r ; +L. 4 Page Fourteen THE MICHIGAN DAILY MAGAZINE ..t , Av ire rrk . 1 3 , 3t Sunday, March 2, 1958 r- - - - - - -- - - - - --,. .J- un Ja.y, IvI1armt.I ~, It 'J f THE MICHIGAN DAILY MAGAZINE THACKERAY 'The Age of Wisdom' Paints Portrait of 19th Century Novelist A Philosophy Instructor Turned Disc Jock Comes to Terms with George Berkely, Orval Faubus and Miss Monroe THACKERAY THE AGE OF WISDOM, 1847 - 1863. By Gordon N. Ray. 523 pp. - lustrated. New York: McGraw. Hill Book Co, $8. By VERNON NAHRGANG Daily City Editor THE PUBLICATION in month- ly numbers throughout- 1847 and 1848 of Vanity Fair brought the beginnings of literary fame and fortune to the tall, bespec- tacled William Makepeace Thack- eray, then in his late thirties. Of the two, fame was most im- portant in mid-century London society; a literary reputation was an assurance of frequent invita- tions to the many events of the spring "season," where one met all the important people, heard and said all that was important, and often furthered the position of one's income. This, with the appearance of Vanity Fair, became Thackeray's world. As a frequent contributor to the then important Punch magazine, he livened his social stature with satire, wit and mild attacks against the pompous aris- tocracy. In turn he drew criticism from those who disliked his essays and novels as well as from those to whom he had been unkind. Once an enemy, forever alienated-and some, like the Times, never made a favorable comment on anything Thackerayean. Dickens was another of them; having once disagreed with Thackeray, he became finally anything but a friend. Although the social paths of the two novel- ists crossed often, their relations remained strained. But Thackeray's acquaintances among men of letters were many and his quarrel with Dickens PORTRAITS OF A NOVELIST-"Thackeray About 1860" is the title of the study at left showing the writer a few years before his death. At right, one of Thackeray's own drawings of himself and his daughter Anny in 1848 illustrates the author's versatility at sketching as well as writing. could be set aside. There were Carlyle and Macaulay, both sound critics and friends; 'Charlotte Bronte, who dedicated the second edition of Jane Eyre to Thacker- ay; Henry Hallam; the historian (the death of whose son, Arthur, caused Tennyson to write In Me- moriam) ; and Henry James, Sr., whom Thackeray vised on one of his trips to America. A MORE intimate acquaintance, however, had the strongest af- feet on Thackeray's personal life and writings of the time. He had known William Brook- field since his school days, but Jane Brookfield, William's wife, for only a short time. To Thack- eray, who lived as a widower with his two daughters,-the childless Mrs. Brookfield held strong at- traction. For several years, the triangu- lar relationship was a difficult one for all. Thackeray never felt that Jane sufficiently returned his love, Jane insisted upon re- maining completely faithful to her husband, whom Thackeray didn't want to -hurt either, and William grew more and more up- set with the situation until. final- ly he brought about a complete separation between Thackeray and the Brookfields. The memories remained with the novelist, however, throughout the remainder of his life as lec- turer, traveller and author. The later writings, as Gordon N. Ray shows in Thackeray: The Age of Wisdom, reflect the novel- ist's unrequited love. In Henry Es- mond, Thackeray finds solace in reversing actuality and making his hero the object of the woman's unreturned affection. BUT PROF. Ray's fine biogra- phy begins with the success of Vanity Fair in 1847 - as the con- cluding volume of a two-part series that began a few years back with Thackeray: The Uses of Ad- versity - and then traces the la- ter career of the "major novelist." Advertised as the only work authorized by the Thackeray fam- ily, Prof. Ray's biography makes use of many letters and papers made available to him by the Thackerays. Included are por- traits of and drawings by Thack- eray, one of those writers who often illustrated his own works. Prof. Ray, in assembling his profusely annotated biography, has quoted fluently-from Thack- eray, his contemporaries, and a few moderns. This is, indeed, a critical biography of the novel- ist and his works, although the criticism is less Prof. Ray's than it is the critics' of the nineteenth century. Thackeray: The Age of Wisdom, like its predecessor, is one of those careful studies in which a man is made to live again and to walk the tightrope of public opin- ion with the favorable and the unfavorable brought to bear pro. portionally on his reincarnation, 'DAY, however, Thackeray's position in literature has slipped from that of a few years back. Prof. Ray concedes that Vanity Fair and Henry Esmond remain the only really popular works, while Pendernnis, the most popular of Thackeray's time and the work that assured him of his place in society, has lost its at- traction. The reasons for this seem clear to Prof. Ray. For one, Thackeray's novels, like his Punch writings, are closely allied with the con- temporary English social setting. The satire and mock characters tend to lose meaning as time moves on. For another, the author's habit of stepping out of his role as nar- rator to deliver some exhortation or erstwhile comment on any- thing in particular seems to in- explicably irritate modern read- ers. Prof. Ray suggests:, The reflective passages in Thackeray's later fiction, how- ever excellent in themselves, are often deplored as irrelevant; but when one regards them as imitations in "the other har- mony of prose" of those Hora- 'tion odes in which a general proposition is illustrated by ex- amples, they seem not merely acceptable but delightful. IF POSTERITY is hard on Thackeray, it must at least be said that the emminent Victorian tried and tried, hard for success. Motivated in part to provide for the future of his daughters, he worked at writing and even lec- turing to raise his income annual- ly. His. lectures, a collection titled English Humorists of the Eight- eenth -'Century, were presented throughout England and in many cities in America. They drew mixed audiences as they drew mixed criticism, but the final judgement in Prof. Ray's mind at least is that Thackeray cer-. tainly arranged the facts to fit his presentation. Henry Esmond naturally fol- lowed the lectures as an histori- cal novel set in the eighteenth century. The success of Esmond, however, is laid by Prof. Ray to the living characters in the old setting. Thus Thackeray: The Age of Wisdom becomes a handbook for the study of Thackeray and his writings, a very readable, authen- tic handbook that has much to say about a major novelist. togetherness in the business world. "I am a team man, without a problem I can name. I am a team man, acooperation is my game... Togetherness, the life we bless, Mom and me and Sis and Brother .. What difference does it make that we can't stand each oth- er?J I am a team man and will be until the day I die. Astride my beam man, I'll greet the great coach in the sky. For Him I'll have one question, to me He wouldn't lie. When I humbly ask Him, dear Father, who am I?" Such a song, forces the inquir- er to question Winter, "Why didn't you stay in philosophy where you could criticize the team man, the disc jockey, or the show business personality from safer ground?" GUESS what you want to know," he answered, "is why does a guy split himself up like ence and I don't want to convert anybody to anything." "Ii the 30's," Winter said, "they protested to gain adherence. To- day's protestor can't do :this be- cause we can't really protest, things which are not concrete or immediate dangers." Winter feels mass advertising, organization men and togetherness are not dangerous in the ordinary sense. "These exist in a different con- text, and must be criticized in other ways." Thus the explanation for his songs. He sings them himself which is his closest resemblance to Tom Lehrer, he can carry a tune. While a few of his album selections are trivial and barely funny, others have a humorous, biting punch which convey a thought provoking significance. IN A dialogue-between Boris Ish- {toff, noted Hollywood producer, and his big star, Rock Quarry, we hear the producer berating his star for not breaking into the scandal magazine, Hotstuff. "You are not hot stuff, you are not even cold stuff. You are no stuff at all," wails Ishtoff. "You NOT AL,--his songs express a bitterness toward, expressions of our contemporary culture. "Fallout," a lilting waltz about the courtship of two grotesque mutations, "is simply an expres- sion of my own anxiety over the testing and possible destructive use of nuclear energy." His tunes sometimes get quite obscure. "Tired Blood," for ex- ampje, is a satire on the miracle remedy'which blames the woes of mankind on tired blood. His ref- erences go back to Abelard and Adam and Eve. "They could have prevented mankind's fall, Simply by sipping some . Paul Winter's life is-fascinating for he does exactly what he wants to do. It's refreshing for the college student to know of at least one person who, instead of just going to the Bell when he got sick of an assignment, dropped the whole business and took up an entirely new occupation. IT IS ALSO good to know there is at least one person in the commercial world who is keenly aware of what is going on about him and will speak out in protest, even if in an offbeat mariner. Nothing escapes his dislike, even the Actors Studio. "I'm com- pelled to turn a critical ear to- ward my environment." He cited the plays of Tennessee Williams as an example. "I con- sider the man insignificant so I write a funny song about him and the institution." "They even put profundity in Miss Monroe's brassiere." HIS SONGS characterize his need to perform and protest, not in the hope of effecting re- form, rather to show that he is aware of what to him and others THE DJ-"With his happy radio juke box reality," a line from P profession. are existing problems. His object in recording the songs is to enter- tain and make money on the deal. Winter believes that even the Madison Avenue boys can laugh at themselves. He pointed to an enlarged "Peanuts" cartoon on the wall of the broadcasting stu- dio. Linus is listening to the radio Automatically.. .your 1 best projector buy e +s 5 r S " " :}:' " ''+}: ?{:$::+ : {:;5: . Y r ,+":r, . ' sr < n a . { v rs. :4r'{;{{:;::$::=,'.'":'4;-y '+ " .. .. 54 .,..:.v: .,..:- :"... .;;;:?,":::i$:a r r .; rf...r :..:. .:,. .. ....,. , .. ,.f ,s...:...s .. :. .4"i ........:.......rf. . .::., .'' 3. ..r:,-..h r....:"', :4. .. .. .. II t fi :%{; :f" :: Y t1 -Daily-Norman Jacobs HE SPECIALIZES ... in satire WITH SONGS ... to make you thimk. U EAS this? It's not an easy question to answer because it is a vital- one. "In the first place," he began, "I am- a performer, and the per- former is not necessarily a dis- criminating person. I enjoy the work I do - delivering commer- cials, playing records." "On the other hand," he con- tinued, "because of my back- ground I'm compelled to turn a critical ear toward my environ- ment." He gave as an example his mo- tivation for writing "Team Man." "There is too much suspicion of the lonely man thinking for him- self. The emphasis is on group thinking." Winter finds this a ba- sic violation of "what you might call the democratic spirit, the notion of self respect and indi- vidualism." Winter differentiates his kind of. protest from the so- cvial protest. of the '30's. "I'mr pro- testing points of view and not ide- ologies. The protestor 20 years ago fought against unemployment and bread lines. I protest for the entertainment of my limited audi- donate thousands to cerebral pal- sy, buy station wagons for Girl. Scout troops, send money month- ly to your aged mother. But not one cent for scandal." "But chief, I can't do it," whines his anguished star. "Rock Quarry, you are sick, sick, ill, and you are through. Now you'll never know what it's like to be really loved." "It occurred to me," Winter commented, "that there is a kind of confusion between love and publicity. There is an under- ground invitation to reveal your- self and you will be loved. It doesn't matter what you reveal as long as it brings revelation." There is in all of us the inclin- ation to give ourselves up and bare ourselves to gain approval, to deny private needs and pri- vate lives." So, he writes a clever piece about it. Sometimes, Winter says, "I feel like an itinerant preacher and want to shout my feelings from a soapbox." Instead he per- forms. 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