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The Swedish
John Cowper Powys Society
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First page ► About the society ► Newsletters ► Biography ► Bibliography ► John Cowper Powys Contact ► In Swedish ► |
Newsletter no 10 What happened
to Wolf Solent? New concepts of an
Ibsenian theme by John Cowper Powys Wolf Although with a hint of Gnosticism it is quite another view, for the
world is not solely seen as evil, but
there is a hint of a contact with something lasting and peaceful beyond the
sensual world, with its pain and joy, is the occasion, always in some way available,
which reconciles us with ”the survival of the fittest”, the life-struggle,
that makes itself manifest in the face of the man observed by Wolf in
Waterloo station, in the slaughterhouse, in the vegetative world. Let’s name
it an agnosticism of faith:
ignorance of what it is, experience of that it is. This could not happen until Wolf gives up his mythology. His variant
of an Hjalmar Ekdahl life-illusion (Ibsen’s The Wild Duck) placed him outside everyday society –
”invulnerable” to common human feelings and short-comings – a protagonist warrior
of good versus evil, an uncompromising idealist. From looking upon the world as derived from a First Cause of both good
and evil, hence the mythology, he now perceives that there is something
beyond, or inherent in, this Cause. Already in the opening’s railway journey
to Ramsgard this is suggested. Through the carriage-window Wolf contemplates
the vernal landscape, the vegetation, nature, which infuses strength in the
soon middle-aged man who is about to break with his former life, and this
emanates from ”beyond the struggle of survival”. We must not forget that the
image of the suffering man is immanent during the fast and shaking train
journey. A seed is sown, the meaning of which will blossom at the end of the
novel. A man invulnerable by means of his secret life signified de facto a
hedonism which relieved him of responsibility; it also relieved him of the experience of every day life. Wolf’s sort of
solitude, his life-illusion, resembled Hjalmar Ekdahl’s: it implied an
illusion of the other, his fellow men. As this sort of pride looses its grip, he first tries to explain it as
depression, but what happens is that he now, under the influence of these
new eyes, begins to see his fellow men liberated from the rigid pattern of
his mythology. The squire Urquhart is no longer solely evil, and even worthy
of compassion; lord Carfax, who painfully seduces Wolf’s young, and in his
company languishing, wife Gerda, is in his aristocratic coolness and
comfortable English amoralism the one who, by generously offering employment,
gives new life-spirit to a worn out man; yes, to the man at Waterloo station
in a new guise. Wolf now discovers that every
individual has his life-illusion. Thereby, strengthened by a new
dynamism, he realizes that he can retain his own. Wolf’s so to speak unmetaphysical perception of a beyond doesn’t lead
to a repudiation of the sensual world – on the contrary. Neither will Powys
henceforth abandon the image of a both good and evil First Cause. The
reconciliating beyond unites people in a new reciprocity; since it is
situated beyond reason it opens up to the mystical, unconfessionally, a
little similar to taoism, so that Powys can remain ”hedonist”, Pyrrhonist, a
believer. The way to this modus vivendi passes through simplicity. The slightly
mentally retarded school-boy Gaffer Barg serves as a model, ready, as he is,
to ”forgive God” even if he himself must suffer. Gaffer leads a life of
active humanity with his idealistic naivety. The life-illusion is really a capital in an extended social life; it
indicates a direction. It becomes possible to use it as an asset. Hence it
follows that Powys, for what happens to Wolf happens to him, takes himself
with ease – is liberated from ”melodrama” – listens, gives out; readily
takes the part of a clown; acts from his disposition. You could object that
this was the character of Powys from his early years – and you are in one
sense right. But he now becomes able to exclude elements of the culture he
was brought up in and establish a selective relation to it, based on his new
life-view. The title of the last chapter is Maturity
is all. This means a readiness to face the difficulties which will appear
when you have chosen your destiny – to Wolf a gray daily grind as a teacher.
Two ways are suggested with ”endure or escape”: endure as animals and plants
and be open to their transfusion of strength, as in the poems of Wordsworth;
escape, Taoisticly, by means of lowness, become like air, like water seeking
its lowest level. But also this emanates from what happened to Wolf Solent. |
This page updated 3 June 2008.