The Contenders

by John Wain

Wain's 3rd novel.

286 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

John Barrington Wain was an English poet, novelist, and critic, associated with the literary group "The Movement". For most of his life, Wain worked as a freelance journalist and author, writing and reviewing for newspapers and the radio.

Wain was born and grew up in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, the son of a dentist, Arnold Wain, and his wife Annie, née Turner. He had an older sister and a younger brother, Noel. After attending Newcastle under Lyme High School, he entered St. John's College, Oxford, gaining a first in his BA in 1946 and MA in 1950. He was a Fereday Fellow of St. John's between 1946 and 1949. On 4 July 1947, Wain married Marianne Uffenheimer (b. 1923 or 1924), but they divorced in 1956. Wain then married Eirian Mary James (1920 - 1988), deputy director of the recorded sound department of the British Council, on 1 January 1960. They had three sons and lived mainly in Wolvercote, Oxford. Wain married his third wife, Patricia Adams (born 1942 or 1943), an art teacher, in 1989. He died in Oxford on 24 May 1994.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wain was a member of the so-called Angry Young Men generation of British writers working in the late 1950s. Long overshadowed by the likes of John Osborne and Keith Waterhouse, Wain's work stands up remarkably well today - better, in some ways, than that of his contemporaries. The Contenders is a story about rivalry between a couple of "friends," one a successful industrialist and the other a successful artist, who seek to undermine each other not so much through sabotage but through an oh-so-English brand of excessive and double-edged generosity. It's set in London and an unnamed Midlands town (whom the narrator, reluctantly bowing to literary convention, constantly refers to as "the town I musn't name"), just as postwar England was shaking off the fog of austerity and beginning, ever so tentatively, to Swing. It's narrated with a clarity and frankness that is bracing and often very, very funny - I've laughed out loud at this book more than at any other book I can remember, and I am not a laugh-out-loud-while-reading kind of guy. The ending is a bit too pat (and it relies on gender assumptions that modern readers will find problematic), but before you get there it's quite an enjoyable ride.

[Edwin Lang · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s a recent online essay published by Harvard Business Review, When You’re Stuck Working with a Slacker, by Rebecca Knight, in which a colleague is pictured slouched in his chair at work (presumably pre-COVID), shades on to shield himself from unwanted light and pants rolled up and feet, shoes and socks off, in a presumably relaxing foot bath. The picture is funny because we have likely been there, perhaps as the slacker and at other times as the one enduring that behaviour. But when I first joined the work force, in Montreal and for an Insurance company, the employer had a huge near-pitch dark room filled with rows of Lazy Boys, reserved for anyone to use to take a time out (except for once a year when the company had their Annual meeting). The obverse though is what this book, The Contenders, is about. We meet the three key players in this story just at the point where the boys are emerging from their youth and ‘the rat-race of adolescence quickens and boys begin to see life in competitive terms’.

In the Contenders, written by author John Wain in 1958, we have two opponents, friends from school days, who spend their life’s energy battling one another, consumed by envy and avarice, and the need to achieve a success greater than their opponent. It is a good story, and is told by Joe Shaw. Joe – whose real name is Clarence – is the main character and a school friend of the two: Robert Lamb, artist, and Edward (‘Ned’) Roper, businessman. It had been Ned and Robert who called him ‘Joe’ and it stuck. Both possess a desire to be independent, are immensely competitive, controlling and calculating and have very strong characters.

Robert though is a dark, thick-set and imposing, moodily self-centered and easily-angered man. Ned is smooth. He is the classic business man: fair, tall, temperamentally sanguine, almost grim in his single-mindedness and focus, and while controlling like Robert, is suave and methodical. What they share is an obsession with success – a trait that is ‘bred in the bone’ – about which Wain quotes Trollope: ‘success is the necessary misfortune of human life, but it is only to the very unfortunate that it comes early’. The story is an easy and enjoyable read but really comes alive when Ned steals Robert’s beautiful wife, Myra, and marries her.

John Wain is one of the Angry Young Men of the 1950’s, and one senses that, in spite of the book’s humour and satire, writers like Wain were both accurate observers and prophetic. As John Wain’s Joe Shaw says early on: ‘even though during the Depression England was the “richest country”, the politicians didn’t give a damn whether the kids grew up with rickets or not. I suppose they were too worried about making sure the Reds didn’t murder them in their beds’.

Although the subject, essentially a darkness of the soul, is a heavy one, it is fascinating to live though this in the eyes and memory of Joe Shaw. A Catholic resource on avarice, discusses what is happening in pretty dark terms: ‘ambition, envy, malice, and other interior sins culminate in the gravest damage when they are armed with worldly power, and worldly power and prestige, in this fallen reality, is almost always the companion, and usually the puppet, of wealth’.

We also see Envy defined as ‘(bearing) a grudge toward someone due to coveting what that person has or enjoys’. Partly what makes this novel riveting I think is that while we (and business journals) can fret about ‘slackers’ – Joe Shaw saw himself as something of a slacker, mediocre and a provincial and occasionally feels some dissatisfaction – there is something that is not talked about a lot and these are the problems frequently associated with achievement. All of us who have tried to achieve something, or inadvertently did achieve something good, have likely felt the Robert/Ned dynamic too: it seems sometimes that while there are a few who rejoice with us in our success should we be so blessed, there are invariably those who come out of the woodwork ablaze with envy and avarice. Wikipedia does a good job describing what is happening: ’Aristotle defined envy as pain at the sight of another's good fortune, stirred by "those who have what we ought to have" (and adds that) Bertrand Russell said that envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness. Not only is the envious person rendered unhappy by their envy, Russell argued, but that person may also wish to inflict misfortune on others to reduce their status.’

One reviewer of John Wain’s life , who had met him at University, said: ‘I remember him as a modern man of letters, an intelligent and learned man seriously concerned with the issues of his time and intensely dedicated to the writer’s craft’. I personally recommend the author and this particular book for its insightfulness and relevancy. Relevant? Well. It’s not the envy and avarice we face from time to time in one’s personal and work lives and relationships but in society as a whole: I have seen priests squirm with envy as another priest delivered an outstanding homily. I am sure we have all seen something like it. And in Canada (alas) we witness the unfolding of a plan for the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) to acquire a US Railway line (Kansas City Southern), an acquisition that was initially agreeable to both parties and seemed both rational and logical as CPR’s routes complemented those that KCS had in place. Then comes along another Canadian railway line, the Canadian National Railway (CNR) - a perennial competitor - tabling billions in more money (that incidentally it doesn’t readily have), paying an additional US$700 million as the fee to cancel the original agreement CPR had with KCS (see note about money, lack of) and will have to pay US$1 billion to KCS (see note about money) should the US regulators reject the newly proposed CNR/KCS merger (as analysts predict will happen as CNR’s and KCS’s routes compete with, rather than complement, one another, thus raising the prospect of layoffs, redundant lines and overall inefficiencies). And for the proposed merger being essentially insane. But there is humour here nonetheless of course, and it gives these situations, and books like The Contender, their ability to fascinate us and remind us that the seven deadly sins are deadly for a reason.

Edwin

PS: Now seriously, who could have guessed that the slacker was right - The Benefits Of Taking Time Out For A Foot Bath

[Russell James · Rating 5 out of 5]

We follow three men, friends from school (presumably in the potteries town of Stoke) in their adult life. Joe tells the story, which is mainly of his two competitive pals - competitive in possessions, careers and women. (Joe is content to be in their shadow.) This is a well-crafted story, with distinctive characters, is amusing at times and reeks of the 1950s.

[Luisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny and heart warming. Joe, Ned and Robert go to the same school and Joe tells us the story of them growing up and the endless competition between Ned and Robert. One an artist and the other a successful businessman. Then Myra comes along...

[Gitte Hørning · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Wain er uddannet fra Oxford University og har selv undervist i litteratur, men i størsteparten af sit liv har han ernæret sig som skribent: han har et stort fiktivt forfatterskab bag sig, men har også arbejdet som journalist og litteraturkritiker. Som forfatter var han tilknyttet 1950’er-gruppen The Movement, der dels opponerede mod den modernisme, som havde tegnet århundredets start, dels mod den dramatiske prosa, som var produkt af verdenskrigene, og endelig mod den sociale indignation, som var kendetegnende for den mere kendte 1950’er-gruppering: Angry Young Men.

’Mænd med succes’ udspiller sig mellem Staffordshire og London og beskriver to mænds rivalisering om den samme trofækvinde og deres rivalisering om succes i deres respektive karrierer inden for kunstverdenen og forretningslivet. Stødpude mellem de to kamphaner og fortæller af historien er en tredje barndomskammerat, der i romanens nutid er i trediverne og ernærer sig som journalist. Hans fortællestil er nøgtern realisme – og så alligevel ikke, for realismen er tilført et lag satire. Ikke politisk satire, men blot sleben engelsk humor og ikke mindst selvironi; fortælleren nedgør konstant sig selv i form af ytringer à la: Joe Shaw, tyk og middelmådig, skabt til at arbejde ved et provinsblad.

At Joes journalistiske metier er at beskrive andre (spændende) menneskers gøren og laden er meget betegnende for hele hans personlighed. Som klassens tykke dreng har han tidligt opgivet selv at være aktant i de riter, der udspilles blandt drenge, unge mænd, karrieremænd; han er blot det nødvendige publikum til kunstmaleren Robert Lambs gentagne prøven kræfter med forretningsmanden Ned Roper. Og netop gentagelsesmønstret bibringer efterhånden læseren den opfattelse, at substansen i det, de to brushoveder aktuelt konkurrerer om, egentlig er ligegyldig. De kæmper om sejren udelukkende for at overvinde modparten – ikke fordi det aktuelle stridsobjekt betyder noget for dem. At det forholder sig sådan, ligger i øvrigt implicit i den engelske titel, ’The Contenders’, der betyder konkurrencedeltagerne.

Det futile i de to ambitiøse og succesfulde mænds indbyrdes anstrengelser afsløres gradvist over for Joe og læserne, og til sidst rejser Joe sig endelig fra sin position som passiv voyeur og kommer i omdrejninger for selv at hapse en begæret bid af tilværelsen. Den provinsialisme, Joe hele vejen igennem har nedgjort hos sig selv, ser han pludselig i et positivt lys hos en kvinde som den kvalitet at være autentisk og ’grounded’. Og idet han aktivt går efter hende, vender han omsider det døve øre til sine blaserte kammerater.

’Mænd med succes’ er ikke nogen stor og dyb roman. Trods den let sentimentale slutning tilbyder den sig dog som okay-underholdning, hvis man eksempelvis momentant har fået forstoppelse af at beskæftige sig med besværlige modernister som Joyce og Woolf, der indgår i det grundlag, som The Movement - og med dem - John Wain opponerede imod. 2½ stjerne fortjener romanen helt sikkert, men da dette ikke kan lade sig gøre, bliver det 3.