A.N. Wilson – My Own RE:public

The Bennett of Bennett & Brown

Following from my previous post, if you get another shot at The Spectator, A.N. Wilson also had something to say earlier in the year on Arnold Bennett and a new biography by Patrick Donovan called Arnold Bennett: Lost Icon (Unicorn) which couldn’t help but interest me.

Now for me, Bennett is only the Bennett of Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown; that essay from a certain Mrs. Woolf that is the wryly imagined culmination of the legendary dispute between herself and the aforesaid, and is a proxy – so to speak – for that greater reckoning between proponents of realism and modernism in the early 2oth century novel.

More than a little snarky when it comes to Mrs. Woolf, in my opinion, is the Mr. Wilson. Nor quite accurate either. Bennett and Woolf were contemporaries only up to a point, more precisely their careers briefly overlapped; most of Bennett’s works (including the “Clayhanger” series) were published in the first two decades of the century, and Mr. Bennett’s criticism of Mrs. Woolf’s third novel Jacob’s Room came in 1922 and before her real rise to literary fame with Mrs. Dalloway. And Wilson’s claim that she (and others) had it in for Bennett because he was too “middle-brow” is rather specious. On the contrary, one could contend; it was Mrs. Woolf’s “Mrs Brown” who displayed various degrees of the too easily maligned “middle-brow” – Mrs. Woolf is rooting for the “middle-brow” with all their peculiarities and inconsistencies and against easy assumptions made of them. Her point is: if it were to be a “Mr. Bennett” who was to imagine and describe his “Mrs Brown”, he would have her been imbued in his own image, reflecting the world as he saw it.

I do understand Mr. Wilson’s loyalties towards Mr. Bennett – the links between the two men: Stoke-on-Trent, potteries, Wedgwood are clear. And Clayhanger and The Potter’s Hand stand only a century apart in the setting and a (different) century in the writing of; neither of which I have read, but am inclined to.

When the processing is over

All good things come to an end – earthly lives, sovereign reigns, civil queues, cavalcades and processions. And so, yesterday, did all of those as they relate to the life and death of Queen Elizabeth II. Some say people pass – away, on, to the other side, whatever – but I say it is Time that passes, and we all just the accompaniment – irrespective of our stand in this life.

*Queen Elizabeth II’s Funeral Procession leaving Westminster Abbey after the state funeral (19.Sep.2022)*

Culminating with a State Funeral at Westminster Abbey and a Committal Service followed by a private interment at Windsor – with all the intermittent comings and goings and spectacular processing – these few days since the Queen’s death on 8th September have been extraordinary to watch (thank god for the BBC; this hopefully to be remembered when the license fee debate reemerges as it surely will); the precision of events, the organization, all just awesome to behold (the tainted reputation of Diana’s infamous “grey suits ” – embraced it has to be said by the Sussexes – suddenly and probably temporarily rehabilitated). Beyond the personal and collective grief displayed with abandon, the fair-minded and inquisitive observer has been initiated in a multitude of historical and constitutional rites and rituals. For instance, the so-called Accession Council’s formal proclamation of the death of one monarch and the accession of the new – the Privy Council given a public airing. Or those final moments in St. George’s Chapel when the crown, scepter and orb were removed from atop the Queen’s coffin to be replaced by the Lord Chamberlains’ broken wand, then to be lowered to the lament of a lone piper into the vault.

I dare say there is such a thing as being too captive to tradition, but there is also something to be said for the consoling power of ritual and the promise of continuity offered by tradition and precedent. And, if one is (as I often am) in awe of the British talent for theater, it has to be admitted that the occupants of successive Royal Households right up to the Windsors have more than played their role.

Every corner of the medial landscape is strewn with words and images from the last week or so – some appropriate, some not so. For something a little different amongst various degrees of sentimentality and silliness, A.N. Wilson’s piece in The Spectator is a sensible contribution (if you can get it…by which I mean circumvent the paywall) and on a more scholarly note, I let some literary and academic voices from the UK, speak on their (Her) Majesty on Radio 4 – you can’t say HM’s broadcaster was not prepared for these days of passing.

The error of his ways…

These could Boris Johnson still not see – or, at least, admit to – as the curtain begins to fall on his chaotic tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Some would relegate Johnston to the role of court jester; one there to amuse, to charm, to garner favor and applause. Too lazy a conclusion, I would suggest, insinuating him to be but a minor performer – hovering in the wings, just the filler during drunken intervals. For, oh how well he used those intervals – to discombobulate, to prevaricate, to slyly maneuver himself to center stage. Good riddance I say.

Eduard von Grützner: Falstaff mit großer Weinkanne und Becher (1896) (Falstaff with big wine jar and cup, 1896)

And A.N. Wilson says it so much better in Oldie Magazine. As always, on those fabled Isles, Shakespeare is there to be turned to for just the right anecdote, just the right personage, to explain (away) the most inexplicable; like the petty frivolities and conceits of Westminster and its players. With Johnson it is as with Falstaff; where the comic ends and the tragic begins rests in the eye of the beholder, at the mercy of a fickle audience and electorate alike. So, let the curtain fall on this 21st century Falstaff. (A drink at the bar may be in order as one awaits, and with trepidation, the next act! Believe me – it ain’t promising!)

Church and crown

…and The Prayer Book Controversy of 1927-28.

Brought to my attention while listening to the Times Literary Supplement Freedom, Books, Flowers & the Moon podcast here is an essay by A.N. Wilson in the TLS (a free article if you’re lucky or with subscription) that starts and ends with Josiah Wedgwood IV, a descendent of the potter and a Labour Party MP from 1923 until his death in 1943. Clearly here a name known through the familiar colour and motif of Wedgwood porcelain, but to me also because I recall Virginia Woolf sharing some gossipy, interesting stuff of another variety regarding “Jos.” in her diary. What I can’t remember are comments about his passionate political commitments (and make herewith a note to myself to look into this – Leonard Woolf would have surely had sympathy with some of his opinions).

For Wedgwood was certainly a radical sort – leaving the Liberals behind him in the interest of a commitment to the working class fight, standing almost alone against the eugenics zeitgeist, ever alert to the dangers of fascism, supportive of Zionism, Indian independence – and, in respect to the Prayer Book controversy, opposed to Anglican matters of cleric, communion or anything else being disputed in the Houses of Parliament. It was not the substance of the 1928 Prayer Book revisions (foremost being that opponents saw in it an opening towards Catholic practices) that Wedgwood railed against (as an agnostic he presumably didn’t give a twig!), rather that as a matter it had no place in a secular establishment.

For the record: the bill brought forward was defeated two times in the House of Commons, soon thereafter the Bishops took matters into their own hands and the 1928 version was authorised after a fashion, the Church of England has its own governing Synod (1969) and must no longer seek parliamentary approval, and the infamous 1928 book and its 1662 precursor exist together; neither absolutely adhered to in practice amidst a variety of forms of worship.

And what concerns A.N. Wilson (Wiki informs: that he is a biographer of “the potter”, that his father was in fact managing director of Wedgwood – oh, and that he is Emily’s father!) is just how Protestant is Britain now, and that leads to curious considerations; including whether at the next Coronation Service the new monarch will swear an oath to uphold the Protestant Religion. And what can that possibly mean in a nation comprising so many beliefs and in an increasingly secular society?