Cynthia

by Leonard Merrick

“This is, quite simply, a terrific piece of work.”
—The Neglected Books Page

The story of a marriage, writing, failure, love,
maturity and comedy.

Genres: Fiction

360 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1896

About the author

Leonard Merrick was an English novelist. Although largely forgotten today, he was widely admired by his peers, J. M. Barrie called Merrick the "novelist's novelist."

Reviews

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 3 out of 5]

This 1896 novel is my second by Leonard Merrick. It was not quite as dramatic as The Man Who Was Good, but it was compelling in a quieter way. I think I can understand why authors such as G. K. Chesterton and George Orwell called this their particular favorite. (This per Wiki.)

The book tells the story of Humphrey Kent. When we first meet Kent, he is on vacation in France after the publication of his first novel. The idea is to have a bit of a break before diving into writing his next book.

But then he meets Cynthia, is captivated, wins her hand in marriage, and suddenly he is not just a bachelor author but a man with Responsibilities, who cannot live the freewheeling creative life in which he had written that first book.

Can he still manage to write a novel? Do his in-laws understand or respect his career choice? He knows he has the talent, but can he prove it to them? To the world?

These could be questions any writer might be faced with at some point in life, and the choices Kent makes while in pursuit of a balance between creativity and practicality become the rest of the story.

There were times I thought our man Kent was pretty dumb, and our young couple had to deal with a very large case of Pride, which is not always a good thing to carry around with you. At least not the type of Pride Kent and Cynthia suffered from.

There are places where I thought the story might turn a certain way (it did, but not until a later chapter) and other places where I was surprised at what was happening. The story was satisfying, and I enjoyed the glimpse into Kent's world of writing. I wonder if any of the real life authors of the day went through such experiences? Maybe that is what made this book so appealing to Merrick's contemporaries? The book might have exaggerated certain phases of the creative life that they were all familiar with, who knows?

Some people think that three stars is not a very good rating for any book, but for me it means exactly what GR says it means. I liked it. I did not feel I could give it four stars, because I liked The Man Who Was Good enough to give that rating, but this one was not the hold your breath type of story that was. As I said, much less dramatic, even if it was suspenseful in a different way.

I am now very curious about what will happen in the next Merrick title on my list! What world will we be sampling next?

[Neale · Rating 4 out of 5]

George Orwell considered ‘Cynthia’ to be Leonard Merrick’s best book. This might seem surprising to a modern reader starting out on the book (it did to me): the opening section is rather slow to gain traction, the style sparse and the subject matter apparently conventional. It is only after reading the subsequent sections that one realises the subtlety of what Merrick is doing at the beginning.

I suspect that it was the middle section that Orwell admired most. The married couple move to Paris, the husband, an unsuccessful ‘serious’ writer, offered a journalistic position which never eventuates, and they are soon desperately short of cash. This section is a remarkable achievement, in its relentless display of the petty details of domestic and commercial life, and the horrendous pressures of keeping up middle-class appearances (even for ‘bohemians’): it is so good and so real, and so harrowing, that when it ended I felt like applauding. It is just the sort of thing that would have appealed to Orwell.

And then there is conclusion, back in England, in which the heroine, who starts out as a colourless ‘daughter of Philistines’, takes on a life of her own - after a somewhat melodramatic episode involving a famous lady novelist - and justifies having her name as the book’s title. The ending is remarkably stark, and must have seemed even more so in its time: I can’t imagine a more disillusioned (and yet oddly uplifting) end to a novel of ‘romance’.

[Erich C · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 solid stars for a very enjoyable work with fantastic writing!

Leonard Merrick is a writer whose works deserve to be read more. The title character of Cynthia: A Daughter of the Philistines is at first only a peripheral figure, but gradually she becomes the book. Merrick's approach is masterful, as Cynthia grows along with the novel from girlhood to womanhood.

The first parts of the novel are familiar, as Humphrey Kent follows the oft-described path of the struggling artist, and the question that Merrick first poses is to what extent Kent should be willing to compromise his art for the sake of supporting a family. Later, as Kent's moral dilemmas multiply, Merrick probes sexual/power dynamics, the tensions between artistic and commercial success, and the artifact as an extension of identity.

Meanwhile, through the Walford family (the Philistines), Merrick examines many of those same themes: Sam W, stock-man and man-of-business, pushing Kent to get a "real" job; Louisa W, putting on the girl, fishing for fortunes, a hyperbolic fame engine; Caesar, roaring bass, perpetually coming out next season. Casting her cold and brutally honest eye on them all, the sour and resentful Emily Wix, spinster sister of Louisa.

While often in the background, Cynthia develops from a lovely but vapid girl to a woman with deeper powers.

Leonard Merrick really is an excellent writer. His sentences are smooth and beautifully constructed, with nuance and feeling. He has a very strong understanding of his characters' psychology and motivations, and he writes with wit and compassion. I am very impressed with this first (for me) work by Merrick, and I have added several more to my tbr list!

pp 332-333: Her first sensation was as if, without warning, he had dealt her a brutal blow in the face. There was the same staggered sense of fright, succeeded by the same sick wave of horror. Another woman had known him? Her brain did not leap for details instantaneously, as a man's would have leapt in the inverse situation; the name the woman bore, her position - what had such things to do with it? Curiosity to compare her with herself in looks would follow; now, while she stared at him with bloodless features, she was conscious of nothing but the pollution: another woman had known him. Kent stared back at her, appalled at her aspect; but he divined what she felt no more than he could have understood her emotions had she analysed them for him. "Another woman had known him" was the tumult in her soul; he believed her pride outraged that he had known another woman. The difference was enormous. The curiosity and thirst for vengeance apart, the wife's sensation was what the husband's would have been, had he heard of her own defilement. But that he himself appeared to her defiled he could not grasp; unworthy, contemptible, corrupt, he realised, but "defiled," no.

[Gille Liath · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everyone who reads Merrick now seems to have come to him through Orwell. Orwell classed Merrick as ‘good-bad’, which I suppose means an author he enjoyed reading but wouldn’t want to imitate (although actually there is some resemblance between the Parisian chapters here and Down and Out). The label perhaps implies a degree of trashiness, but in fact this is a perfectly decent little book, nicely written, with material and characters not quite like anything else I’ve seen – the women characters, that is.

However there are really two themes, ‘young marrieds’ (it’s absurd to describe the book as being like This Is 40), and ‘struggling writer’; it’s the latter that gets the upper hand, and which feels much more familiar. The writer character, Kent – no doubt an avatar of Merrick himself – seems to think it evidence of philistinism in his editor that he asks for something ‘a trifle longer’; yet the truth is that this does feel too short and undeveloped. It ends just at the point where you feel it is getting somewhere.

Even so it deserves better than a poor-quality Amazon edition with almost-unreadable print and a full quota of typos and misprints.

[Jon]

Little read today, Leonard Merrick was an Anglo-Jewish novelist, short-story writer, and playwright whose works tended to focus on the theatrical and literary world. It seems surprising he isn't more widely known, since his novels are typically short, humorous, and pithy--a whole lot easier to read than those of, for example, his near-contemporary George Gissing, who dealt with similar themes. A constantly recurring theme in his work is the need for enough money to live on, which helps to give his work a contemporary feel while it takes the reader back into a now-vanished-forever late 19-early 20C. milieu. CYNTHIA, the story of a writer and his troubles with his career, his wife, and her family, is one of his finest, but THE ACTOR-MANAGER and THE POSITION OF PEGGY HARPER are also very good. His short stories, such as the ironically titled "The Man Who Understood Women", are worth a look too.

[Ava Groarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

R.I.P Mr.Merrick, todays female audience would’ve loved you.

[Samantha Glasser]

Read this book for free through Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44465/...