Julian Maclaren-Ross is another writer who’s been on the radar for a while – and for the life of me, I can’t remember from where! It could be from my reading of Anthony Powell last year, as the character X. Trapnel is apparently based on him. Or it could be because he’s often mentioned in connection with Patrick Hamilton who’s lurking on Mount TBR. Or maybe it was because my favourite character in “The Fortunes of War”, Yakimov, is also apparently based on him. It could be because his name is often linked with Patrick Hamilton. Whatever – I picked it up and flung myself into it recently and I’m very glad I did!
“Of Love and Hunger” is set in the late 1930s and tells the story of Richard Fanshawe, trying to scrape a living selling vacuum cleaners in a small seaside town in the vicinity of Brighton. It’s not an easy life – nobody wants to part with money, there are rival firms and the world is in an unstable state of mind, tottering ever closer to war. And this is not a career Fanshawe would have chosen – he’s and educated man, having spent time posted abroad and intending once to be a writer. The group of salesmen is joined by a newcomer, Roper, and his arrival signals a change in Fanshawe’s life. For Roper fails almost straight away and is sacked, going off to sign on for a term of 3 months on ship. Before he leaves, he asks Fanshawe to look after his wife, Sukie – which is so obviously a mistake and is going to set off alarm bells in every reader’s head! Needless to say, Fanshawe and Sukie eventually start an affair – against the backdrop of the rainy seafront, greasy spoon cafes, seedy digs and Woolworth’s’. It’s obvious that, as my offspring would say, “end well this will not”!
For Fanshawe is a troubled man. As the book progresses, we gradually learn more of his past: his life in the east, his past love-life and home life, and how he’s ended up in the situation he’s in. Sukie is also a complex woman, seemingly unsure of what she wants, mercurial, changeable. As D.J. Taylor puts it so well in his excellent introduction, Sukie could pass as Pamela Widmerpool’s “temperamental younger sister” and she’s a hard woman to fathom. In many ways more sophisticated than Fanshawe, she’s also more politically experienced and engaged, and provides much of the novel’s commentary on the situation they find themselves in. As the affair, and the novel, grind ever closer to the end, the signs of war become stronger and seems ironically that the only ‘escape’ for many of the characters from poverty and attempting to scrape a living will be to join the fighting.
“But in a way it was true what Gibbs said. There were a lot of young men in the world like me. You see ’em in the vacuum-cleaner schools, selling secondhand cars, Great Portland Street, silk stockings from door to door. Young man, public school education, can drive car, go anywhere, do anything. Living on hope. Something’ll turn up. Luck’s bound to change. And nothing’d turn up except the war. Perhaps Sukie was right and the system was wrong. Perhaps we did need a revolution. Needed something, anyway.”
I wasn’t sure what to expect of JMR, but this was *such* an excellent read! Maclaren-Ross has a very individual style – sometimes his sentences are short, almost staccato, and this has quite an impressionistic effect, painting a word picture very effectively. He captures quite brilliantly the atmosphere of the seedy seaside town, the boarding houses, the rain and the gloom, the everyday desperation of the characters. The gradual revealing of Fanshawe’s background, in his memory flashbacks throughout the book, cleverly builds up the man’s past till we find out what really made him like he is. Taylor, in his introduction, makes the comparisons that occurred to me – George Orwell and Graham Greene – and certainly there is the same ‘feel’ to OLAH as there is to the writing of those two greats. However, JMR can stand on his own as a strong and distinctive story-teller.
Simon at Stuck-in-a-Book reviewed OLAH in excellent form here, and there was much discussion about a possible genre of “Men Writing in the 1940s. I don’t know about that, but what I do know is that I want to read more JMR!
Aug 07, 2014 @ 09:22:02
This sounds great, another author I don’t think I have heard of before. You do read some fascinating books Karen.
Aug 07, 2014 @ 09:52:09
🙂 I like to read a variety! I’d only come across JMR recently myself – and you will encounter him soon via Anthony Powell!
Aug 07, 2014 @ 09:42:18
This sounds great, especially the possible similarity to Patrick Hamilton. I recently read Hamilton’s Slaves of Solitude and absolutely loved it; I haven’t blogged it yet, but will be doing so in a week or two. In the meantime, I may have to add JM-R to the list..
Aug 07, 2014 @ 09:52:38
I’ve only read one Hamilton (and that’s a long time ago) – but I have several on the pile waiting to read!
Aug 07, 2014 @ 14:06:28
Yes to what Jacquiwine recommends (the Patrick Hamilton). And I’ve just ordered your title from ILL. I haven’t heard of him before, but he sounds right up my alley (so to speak).
Aug 07, 2014 @ 15:00:06
Definitely time for more Hamilton then!
Aug 08, 2014 @ 13:25:37
Am now puzzling about where I’ve read another book that begins with a vacuum cleaner seller… I have an end-of-the-week inability to remember *anything*. Anyway, this writer is new to me and he sounds very appealing.
Aug 08, 2014 @ 13:41:51
🙂 You might be thinking of Orwell’s “Coming Up For Air” – although the hero sells insurance I think, not cleaners!
Aug 08, 2014 @ 14:03:37
I am sure it will come to me in the middle of the night. 😉
Aug 09, 2014 @ 17:37:21
On the surface this doesn’t sound like a book that I would enjoy, but then I ponder about what you’ve said of JM-R’s style I find myself thinking that I might at least have to give him a shot. Maybe if the library has a copy…..
Aug 09, 2014 @ 18:51:59
It’s not an obvious one for me, either, but it really was excellent. Definitely check out your local library…. 🙂
Jun 19, 2015 @ 15:50:39
Right! You got me. I’ve read, several times, the first 2 or 3 of the Powells – I can’t seem to get further, only because i get distracted by other books, so when I think about wanting to read them again, I have to go right back to the beginning! (no doubt this will happen again, now) – but as you talked about the beginning of the book I kind of got memories of the world of Keep The Aspidistra Flying, so Orwell was definitely batting around for me.
Sadly, my local library has far less room for books these days, as most of the space is taken up with computers, so I might just go marketplace seller, as I’m definitiely intrigued………..
Jun 19, 2015 @ 20:47:09
The Powells are a commitment, but worth it – I made it through my challenge to read them (barely!) – I’m hopeless at challenges. I have a nice collection of JMR stories knocking about somewhere too….
Jun 20, 2015 @ 17:22:08
On my ‘to do’ list, for when I’m feeling committed and strong willed, is the Powell, and Proust. I have read Proust 1 book 1 and, as mentioned, the first 2 or 3 Powell’s several times and even bought the Powell’s years ago, on a very good offer in 4 fat collected volumes from Amazon US. And there they sit, glowing beautifully and pristine – not a look I think a book should have!
Jun 20, 2015 @ 19:03:02
The same for me with Proust (I read all of the Powells last year). I’ve managed the first two Proust titles but I lack the long stretches of reading time at the moment to go on with them – which is frustrating!
Of Love and Hunger by Julian Maclaren-Ross | JacquiWine's Journal
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