The Single Hound

by May Sarton

“Only a poet and, perhaps, only a young poet could have written this beautiful and distinguished first novel.” ― New York Times This is the story of two poets, one an elderly Belgian woman known to the world as Jean Latour, the other a young Englishman. When Mark Taylor finds his life and art broken up by his love for an older, married woman, he turns for help to the poems of Jean Latour and finds the help he craves in the poet herself. In this early work we see the first flowering of May Sarton’s special ability to depict sensitive people who find they must travel new pathways if they are to discover their true selves.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Poetry

252 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1991

About the author

May Sarton was born on May 3, 1912, in Wondelgem, Belgium, and grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her first volume of poetry, Encounters in April, was published in 1937 and her first novel, The Single Hound, in 1938. An accomplished memoirist, Sarton boldly came out as a lesbian in her 1965 book Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing. Her later memoir, Journal of a Solitude, was an account of her experiences as a female artist. Sarton died in York, Maine, on July 16, 1995.

Reviews

[Laura]

I read this a couple of years ago - and I remember feeling quite thrilled and uplifted by it. This time round, however, it feels forced - and no longer believable. Seems my tastes have changed, or just got older - more cynical or perhaps just more selective. Not starred it, because I generally read all the way through - if reviewing - unless it's utterly indigestible.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) I was drawn by the title, which comes from an Emily Dickinson quote. It’s the ninth Sarton novel I’ve read and, while in general I find her nonfiction more memorable than her fiction, this impressionistic debut novel was a solid read. It was clearly inspired by Virginia Woolf’s work and based on Sarton’s memories of her time on the fringes of the Bloomsbury Group.

In Part I we are introduced to “the Little Owls,” three dear friends and winsome spinsters in their sixties – Doro, Annette and Claire – who teach and live above their schoolroom in Ghent, Belgium. (I couldn’t help but think of the Brontë sisters’ time in Belgium.) Doro, a poet, seems likely to be a stand-in for the author. I loved the gentle pace of this section; although the novel was published when she was only 26, Sarton was already displaying insight into friendship and ageing and appreciation of life’s small pleasures, elements that would recur in her later autobiographical work.

the three together made a complete world.

Was this life? This slow penetration of experience until nothing had been left untasted, unexplored, unused — until the whole of one’s life became a fabric, a tapestry with a pattern? She could not see the pattern yet.

tea was opium to them both, the time when the past became a soft pleasant country of the imagination, lost its bitterness, ceased to devour, and in some tea-inspired way nourished them.

Part II felt to me like a strange swerve into the story of Mark Taylor, an aspiring English writer who falls in love with a married painter named Georgia Manning. Their flirtation, as soon through the eyes of a young romantic like Mark, is monolithic, earth-shattering, but to readers is more of a clichéd subplot. In the meantime, Mark sticks to his vow of going on a pilgrimage to Belgium to meet Jean Latour, the poet whose work first inspired him. Part III brings the two strands together in an unexpected way, as Mark gains clarity about his hero and his potential future with Georgia, though cleverer readers than I may have been able to predict it – especially if they heeded the Brontë connection.

It was rewarding to spot the seeds of future Sarton themes here, such as discovering the vocation of teaching (The Small Room) and young people meeting their elder role models and soliciting words of wisdom on how to live (Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing). Through Doro, Sarton also expresses trust in poetry’s serendipitous power. “This is why one is a poet, so that some day, sooner or later, one can say the right thing to the right person at the right time.” I enjoyed my time with the Little Owls but mostly viewed this as a dress rehearsal for later, more mature work.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[David Edmonds · Rating 3 out of 5]

This first novel, published in 1938, shows the importance that poetry plays in the life and writing of a young Sarton; the story is brimming with poetic imagery and turns of phrase.

The story centers around the friendship of three elderly teachers, the "Little Owls": Doro, the teacher and poet; Annette, who likes to be in charge; and finally Claire, the beauty. In one phrase that describes the characters interactions within their combined lives perfectly, Sarton writes, "the truth is that they had adapted themselves to each other so completely that when one was absent it was just like a trio without a violin. Nothing quite came off." The story also revolves the meeting of two poets, Mark Taylor, and the poet he turns to for help when his life starts to unravel, Jean Latour.

Largely autobiographical, Sarton describes her own writing habits through the writing habits of Doro. I'm sure that each of the "Little Owls" is in some way inspired by Sarton herself. The writing can become very dense at times, and a little flowery in the use of poetical phrases, but it is her first novel, and such techniques diminish as she becomes more sure of herself as a novelist in her later years. You can definitely see the spark here that will grow as she develops as a writer.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

My rating is actually a 3.5- between liked and really liked it. Granted this novel followed a book that I loved - Not easy - and might explain why I didn't really like Part 1 and then was able to get into Parts 2 & 3. There was a passage towards the end of the book that I like:
"... 'But I have never been able to believe,' she went on, 'that from a depersonalized, universalized being anything really human, any living form of art, could be born - because one can only give what one is, not what one thinks nor what one does nor what one would like to be... don't doubt yourself. Don't think you can live in a great tent of longing or theory, or that because you ought to be something you must pretend to be it. Just lie down on a hill and look up at the stars."

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

sarton is a poet and this is her first novel. it's extremely poetic, so i could only read little bits of it at a time. like cheesecake. a beautiful book.

[Boo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Speaking as a reader of novels, not an appreciator of deep, poetic writing, I loved the first part of the book, and had trouble with two people falling madly in love in the space of one conversation in the second part, where Sarton makes it clear it wasn't much of a conversation - mostly the woman's verbal tics. The third part completely lost me - I can't even argue with it. There was a lot about being your authentic self, and I couldn't see the explanation for it. The last speech of Doro to the young writer just ended, and I was hoping she was going to say more that explained it, or he would explain it, just talking to himself, since it seemed to be central to the whole book.

If only I could judge it just for Part One, about the "Little Owls," I would give it five stars! Great characters with good back stories, beautifully pictured and developed. I can dismiss the "love at first sight" story as the difference between generations. But I seem to have missed something major in the first half, that would make Doro's final speech make perfect sense. Still, I'm glad I read it, if only for the delightful Little Owls.

[Mary Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

So sweet

and tender. So full of beginnings and endings. Thematically rich and showing such promise.
I'm sure that in years to come, l will mine so much from this book.