The Harness Room

by L.P. Hartley

Fergus Macready, nervous, hypersensitive and fond of study, is, at the age of seventeen, the antithesis of his father, a retired Colonel, widowed twelve years before. A hot tempered, fiery looking little man, the Colonel sees in Fergus his mother's replica. But as his wife's image fades from his mind and he decides to remarry, the Colonel becomes obsessed with the idea that Fergus must follow him into the army and be brought up physically to the military mark. When the Colonel leaves for his prolonged honeymoon, he tells his chauffeur Carrington, an ex-Guardsman of magnificent physique, to see that Fergus is toughened up with P. T. and boxing. This training takes place in Carrington's harness room where Fergus at last not only finds a friend but undergoes an experience which greatly increases his capacity for love.

Genres: LGBT, Fiction, Queer, Gay, 20th Century, British Literature, Adult

132 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1971

About the author

Leslie Poles Hartley (1895-1972) was born in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, and educated at Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford. For more than thirty years from 1923 he was an indefatigable fiction reviewer for periodicals including the Spectator and Saturday Review. His first book, Night Fears (1924) was a collection of short stories; but it was not until the publication of Eustace and Hilda (1947), which won the James Tait Black prize, that Hartley gained widespread recognition as an author. His other novels include The Go-Between (1953), which was adapted into an internationally-successful film starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates, and The Hireling (1957), the film version of which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Reviews

[Andrew H · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Despite its shortcomings" writes Gregory Wood's in his new Introduction to The Harness Room, a novella written just before Hartley's death. And there are many shortcomings indeed. This is a curious piece. Had I not read the Introduction, I would have thought this slight prose work was a piece of juvenilia, discovered late, and published on the back of Hartley's reputation.

The plot centres entirely on Foxton Farm -- a fitting location -- for the novel is a study of subterfuge and foxy behaviour. A larger world is hinted at, Sandhurst, Oxford, London, Saint-Tropez, but the the story is confined to a manorial house, a garden, and the harness room where Fred Carrington, Colonel Alistair Macready's bisexual chauffeur, has his rooms. Macready agrees to pay Carrington five pounds a week if he can toughen up his bookish son, Fergus, aged seventeen. From this a sexual relationship develops that harnesses the two men to an exploration of class differences and power, all of which is mimed through boxing.

The Harness Room begins as a coming of age story and develops into a twisted tale worthy of Dahl. Hartley writes with great attention to detail, military metaphors are dropped like grenades at key moments, but the novella never goes anywhere emotionally. Hartley regarded The Harness Room as the novel he took most time over. And that seems to be part of the problem. It exists in a rarified location, is written in sanitised sentences, and ends up chilly and unmoving, a literary curiosity.

[John Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short novel and a fascinating one. Again, I suspect it's autobiographical and introspective which makes it even more interesting here.

It is quite dark – more than a hint of sadomasochism. I also found it moving. I think I'm right in believing Hartley to be, like me, a devotee of Hawthorne? and I felt there were shades of him here (Hawthorne's short stories – eg. The Birthmark and Rapaccini's Daughter).

Hartley's work has found itself on the big and smaller screen more than once – The Go-Between, The Hireling and Eustace and Hilda. This could film too.

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

A provocative little tale…..better than I was expecting! Written in careful, but daringly candid, wording to allow for original publication. It is great that Valancourt Books has brought this worthy gem back into print after more than fifty years.

[Daniel Myatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written short story about the frail complexity of human relationships.

LP Hartley was an incredible writer who just knew exactly what words to use to make his stories stick in your mind.

The relationship between chauffeur Fred, and son of the house Fergus was incredible to read about and see unfold but it was Fergus' father that I just found the most interesting character and the one I wanted to know more about.

A great story and an interesting topic.

[Siv30 · Rating 4 out of 5]

לסקירה מפורטת בעברית קישור לבלוג שלי -

https://sivi-the-avid-reader.com/חדר-...

[JOSEPH OLIVER · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is more a novella or an extended short story rather than a novel. Certainly the version I read was printed on thick paper in large letters to give the appearance of a full book. However, like ‘The Body’ by Stephan King length may have no correlation to quality. This was L. P. Hartley’s final work and, unlike ‘Maurice’ it was published in his lifetime. It was quite brave for a man who lived such a quiet and unremarkable life and kept his sexuality well under wraps in keeping with the legal and moral position of his times.

In the finest traditions of the service all events which may cause offence to readers of a delicate disposition are glossed over and used to be represented by 3 dots in the more romantic novels of the time. Still, you are left in no doubt that something is going on in the bedroom and without any tortures of conscience one would expect. Fergus is only 17 and very much a bookworm with aspirations to Oxford ‘if he can get in’. Cambridge probably would have been more suited to his disposition. His father is well meaning and well off and would prefer him to be a cadet at Sandhurst as he would make an excellent ‘peace time soldier’ and ‘good with the men’. I don’t think his father, who came from a long military tradition saw the irony of that statement. His father asks Fred the chauffeur – an ex-army man himself - to toughen the boy up while he’s away on honeymoon with some boxing routines and exercises in the harness room which is rather conveniently situated beside Fred’s bedroom.
And so they begin a month of exercise routines and boxing matches which are really just excuses for erotic play between the two of them. Lots of massages and body rubs after the boxing matches which leave Fred in much the condition he started in – he hardly broke into a sweat. Fergus however falls for all the behaviours which he believes go with the boxing matches, the close warm up exercises, the close body contact during bouts, the after match massages in case of cramp and suchlike. Between one thing an another Fred knows where all this is going and eventually they end up in the bedroom followed by a closed door and 3 dots.
Fred gets a lot more attached to young Fergus than he thought he would. He has had a lot of admirers in his life and his physical shape has a lot to do with it but he has never had much in the way of conversation with any of them – he had this with Fergus which muddied the waters for him somewhat. Then Fergus’ father returns from his honeymoon after a month and they decide to put on a show match for him just to give the impression that something worthwhile had been going on in the harness room while he was away. And I’ll leave it there as I don’t want to spoil the ending.

It’s a nice gentle safe read and very much a book of its time with all the constraints necessary for publication. If you can get your hands on a copy of it you will not be disappointed. The atmosphere of ‘The Go Between’ is maintained in this work. It is a quiet heart breaker.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really fine, lovely and very moving novel, totally not what I expected - it doesn't say much for my character maybe but the title, the idea of the rough servant toughening up the young master, all led me to think it was a fictional tale along the lines of what really happened to the artist Francis Bacon when he was a sixteen year old when his father encouraged the grooms and stable boys to toughen him up (Google it if you want juicy details) - it was nothing like that, although there is a very slight S&M sub text.

Although this was Hartley's 'queer' novel it is of course absolutely chaste in terms of description while being absolutely frank and open what is happening - I don't think it possible to write like that any more - it is wonderfully of its time but is also completely honest and there is no apology, justification, or attempt at explanation. I am glad it is not written as a novel of 'empowerment' but it is one that takes desire and sex between men as natural.

The really interesting thing about this, and many Hartley's other novels, is that at the heart of it is class, not sex, not money, not anything else and it is extraordinary to read this 1971 novel and see a Britain that is so mired still in class divisions that it affects relationships between men and men and women and men far more than anything else. When this book was being written and published I was barely 12/13 and the world of this novel was not the world I lived but it was part of the world that existed around me and is fascinating for me now to see how strong the old divisions were between classes in the last quarter of the 20th century. If you read history you will be told how much things changed after WWI or WWII or after Suez, the creation of the Welfare State, the 1960s, etc. but a novel like this tells you so much more about how slow change really is.

Sorry this is a bit off track for a simple review - I state again this is really brilliant novel, a 'gay' classic I suppose - if that gets people to read it - but so much more. Hartley is a wonderful writer and I hope reading this will lead on to reading his other finenovels.

[Nicolas Chinardet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written at the end of Hartley's life, The Harness Room is emblematic of its author's work in that the central relationship between the older working-class man (Fred) and the middle-class adolescent (Fergus) is an echo of a number of male relationships conjured up by Hartley along the years. It is however more explicit in that respect than those previous books, to the point that he came to call it his "homosexual novel".

Though it was written several decades later, the novel was published at the same time as Maurice and the two books share some similarities, in particular in the class divide between the protagonists. And although the law had been relaxed somewhat four years before publication, the central relationship was also still illegal, since Fergus, at 17, was under the age of consent (21). However, unlike Forster whom he disliked, Hartley was not attempting to create a private, soothing utopia.

Although deceptively simple with its limpid writing, The Harness Room is a cryptic tale full of narrative silences that go well beyond those annoying gaps of exposition that pepper the early narrative. It reads as if its author was trying to give it some allegorical or symbolic meaning.

Apart from its tragic ending, the book is imbued with dark and disturbing elements, from its S&M undertones to its rampant misogyny, or the enforcement of prescribed (what we would perhaps call "toxic") masculinity Fergus is subjected to, which is ultimately part of the central theme of the book, I think.

Fergus is a typical Hatleian hero; sensitive, "a timid retiring, retreating character", whose father is worried may become a "cissy". Opposite him is Fred, Quentin Crisp's Great Dark Man, some sort of masculine ideal, whom Fergus both desires and wants to emulate.

However, Fergus is under threat from an overbearing world where he doesn't belong. Tellingly, there are only two rooms in his father's house that are free of the influence of his new step-mother, Sophia: the morning room, where he reads and does his homework (which represents the mind), and the hyper-masculine eponymous harness room, where he meets up with Fred and performs physical exercises (which represents the body and love).

Both those rooms, the sundered poles of his personality, are under threat from Sophia's encroaching femininity. Fergus is under pressure (from his military father, the Freudian rule-giver, and from himself) to reject that femininity, which he feels within himself too, and to seek and reveal his own masculine side.

At this point, if we were in Forster's hand perhaps, the book could turn into a paean to self-affirmation, where the hero jettisons the shackles of socially accepted gender roles and expressions to accept his own true self, discovering, through his relationship with Fred, who he really is, and finding happiness of some sort. This is not what happens.

In a scene that is not altogether convincing, Fergus ultimately dies from his attempts at pleasing his father and conforming to society's idea of how a man should behave. The Harness Room becomes an unorthodox morality tale warning of the dangers of foisting the yoke of prescribed gender roles onto those individuals that do not conform.

However, even when factoring contemporary pressures from the moral majority to present gay relationships in a negative light, this is a bleak story indeed that cannot have been a pleasant experience for its original gay readers, and the point of which, if I am right in my analysis, could have been made in a more positive and empowering way.

[Andrew H · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Despite its shortcomings" writes Gregory Woods in his new Introduction to The Harness Room, a novella written just before Hartley's death. And there are many shortcomings indeed. This is a curious piece. Had I not read the Introduction, I would have thought this slight prose work was a piece of juvenilia, discovered late, and published on the back of Hartley's reputation.

The plot centres entirely on Foxton Farm -- a fitting location -- for the novel is a study of subterfuge and foxy behaviour. A larger world is hinted at, Sandhurst, Oxford, London, Saint-Tropez, but the the story is confined to a manorial house, a garden, and the harness room where Fred Carrington, Colonel Alistair Macready's bisexual chauffeur, has his rooms. Macready agrees to pay Carrington five pounds a week if he can toughen up his bookish son, Fergus, aged seventeen. From this a sexual relationship develops that harnesses the two men to an exploration of class differences and power, all of which is mimed through boxing.

The Harness Room begins as a coming of age story and develops into a twisted tale worthy of Dahl. Hartley writes with great attention to detail, military metaphors are dropped like grenades at key moments, but the novella never goes anywhere emotionally. Hartley regarded The Harness Room as the novel he took most time over. And that seems to be part of the problem. It exists in a rarified location, is written in sanitised sentences, and ends up chilly and unmoving, a literary curiosity.

[Rogier · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave the harness room by l p Hartley. A 3.5It was his only explicitly gay novel. You still had to read between the lines though. You get glimpses of each character 's personality but because it's short you barely know them. I'll read more from hartley because his writing is pleasing to read. It was not a weird book but I still don't know what I read . And what was that ending. I was surprised. It totally came out of nowhere. How will the lives of people look like after the ending 😆

[Misha · Rating 4 out of 5]

"What real refuge is there from loneliness? Blankness, blankness, blankness!"

There has been a recent resurgence of L.P. Hartley's The Go-Between on Bookstagram which makes me very happy. It was not until 1971 when Maurice by E.M. Forster was finally published that Hartley's overtly queer novel, The Harness Room, was released as well. And it was only around this time, a year before his death, that the author truly 'came out'. That's such a tragedy.

In this short yet deeply introspective novel, we meet two opposites on the continuum of traditional masculinity. Fergus, the son of a retired army man, is seen as feminine, bookish and sensitive by his disappointed father. His father in turn requests his chauffeur, Fred, the masculine ideal, to make his son "more aggressive", "less of a cissy".

The typical Hartley-ian themes are explored here. The impact of class leading to a disbalanced relationship between Fergus and Fred, despite Fred's physical power over Fergus. Loneliness and isolation is another theme, often leading our protagonists to explore self and identity, their place in the larger society.

Even more so than The Go-Between, this is a deceptively simple novel. The writing is so straightforward at first that it threw me off initially, yet it's the silences and the spaces between what is not said that matters the most. I was forced to pay attention to these blanks in the narrative.

Given the theme and the time it was written, it is a melancholic novel, even a heartbreaker. What I was not expecting was the darkness embedded in it emanating from toxic masculinity, misogyny and power dynamics. It's a complex exploration of these dynamics for such a short novel.

This book is not perfect, I wished it could have been more fleshed out. But I think that there is a quiet beauty in its imperfections. What one cannot ignore either is this book's impact on queer literature at large.

Next on my list are Eustace and Hilda, and The Traveling Grave by Hartley.

[charlotte, · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rep: achillean mc, bi mc

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a quick read of a potent novella by L.P. Hartley which was the first of his books to deal with overt gay content. The book was reissued by the worthy published Valancourt books. The ending (without spoilers) packed a punch and I didn't see it coming. It was quite a twist.

[haz · Rating 2 out of 5]

i'm considering how significant the harness room's publication was to hartley (aka the frankness of the subject matter) and also how i admire him as an author, but this...never reeeally got its feet off the ground and went anywhere (apart from that out-of-the-blue ending), so for that i kind of feel nothing

[Daphne Zanni · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved it! loved it!

[Alistair · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a strange little offering this is. ‘Strange’ in that the author is L. P. Hartley, and ‘little’ in that this is more novella than novel. My only encounter with Hartley was having to read The Go-Between as a school text. Not known then, and I’m making an assumption, now, were his sexual preferences: apparently men. Or that this was his only foray into “gay literature”, first published in 1971, a year before his death.
The plot revolves around the relationship between heir and only son, 17 year old Fergus and the 28 year old chauffeur, Fred Carrington. The chauffeur has all the attributes Fergus’ father wants his son to manifest: manliness, physical strength, toughness. And so, whilst on his honeymoon with his much younger second wife, Sonia, the Colonel entrusts the growth of Fergus to Carrington.
As the two spend more time boxing and exercising in the harness room, the class divisions begin to dissolve ( See or read The Go-Between) and a friendship slowly forms, until after one “physical therapy” session Carrington “ succumbed to Fergus’s fumbling advances”. This is all Hartley is prepared to divulge.
And the language is strangely timeless, if not archaic; apart from an occasional reference to the “telly”, this could be from the 1930s onwards.
Frankly, I don’t think Hartley is in top form here. There are plot developments that occur within the turn of a page, that are sudden and inexplicable. The (presumably) sexual act between Fergus and Carrington is never referred to again. If this novella is a brick into building up a literary culture of gay literature, it is a very small brick.

[Tobias · Rating 3 out of 5]

Colonel Macready enlists the help of his manly, masculine chauffeur Fred to help toughen up Fergus, his "bookish" son, who doesn't live up to his own expectations of masculinity and "What it means to be a man".

Whilst the Colonel is away on his honeymoon, what happens is not quite what Fergus' father originally had in mind, with a lot of what is not said being part of the novella, making it quite erotic at times. The plot ultimately plays out how the internal and external pressures on one's identity can have dire consequences.

Written at a time when attitudes were very different towards the LGBTQIA+ community, the novel reads easily, despite being bogged down by paragraphs that may be more difficult for the modern reader to digest.

It asks and poses many questions that could be good for a book club discussion.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

What starts out as a touching, charming coming of age story/romance becomes something quite ambiguous and disturbing by the end. It's not a masterpiece like The Go-Between, but I think it could have been if Hartley had fleshed it out a bit.

[Geo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m conflicted. I don’t know how to feel about this one. This story follows the chauffeur of an affluent family being instructed to toughen up the rich and soft son. The two begin to bond and perhaps grow close in an intimate sense. This story explored a lot of ideas about masculinity and what it means to be a man in the world. I liked some of what was explored. I felt like the first 75% of this book had something really interesting to say. The last 25% is where it all fell apart for me. There was a sudden twist narrative wise that I didn’t agree with, or rather, I felt it was an oppurtunity to do something more with the themes this book was exploring, but it ultimately failed to do anything more with it. It felt sudden and abrupt, like the author didn’t know how to end it or what else there was to say. It felt like this book was building up to something complicated only to fumble into simplicity and shallowness right at the end. It felt like this book could have had a depth of emotion and lots to say about masculinity and the coming-of-age of young men, but ultimately it traded in those aspects for a mediocre tragic ending. It felt dull and unearned. I understand this is a queer classic in some circles, but it felt redundant. Not much else to say on this one.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book very much, on many levels. Just as I was neatly labeling one character they would say or do something to make me question who was the innocent, who was the pursuer, who was in denial, who was the most calculating, etc. Did the step-mother have a sincere bright, positive regard for Fergus, or was she just being polite (and kind) in the early days of her marriage and entry into a new household? Did the chauffeur really create the elephant in the room out of insecurity/jealousy, or was Fergus's overactive youthful egocentric imagination fanning the flames of a misinterpretation of the stepmother's feelings? As with so many stories if people were clear in their minds and actually communicated honestly most tensions would be avoided or resolved. And there's be no book!

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was curious about this author, so decided to try a novella first. Discovered solid writing quality, but the storyline itself a bit subtle for me to say I could enthusiastically endorse the book, don't start here with Hartley. One of those where the ending was quite interesting, after lots of implication rather than outright revelation. Ironic in the sense that the father's meddling caused a mess rather than being a clever idea: Be careful what you wish for!

Sexual activity is implied (offscreen) rather than present. It's as much about the chauffer's realization than the son's which was interesting. Important to keep in mind that the Oscar Wilde episode was relatively recent during Hartley's youth. I'm planning on trying one of his novels for comparison.

[yoav · Rating 4 out of 5]

נובלה קצרה (כ- 150 עמודים). סיפורו של נער בריטי רגיש, שאימו נפטרה שנים קודם. אביו יוצא הצבא נישא בשנית ורוצה שהבן יתחשל מעט ומבקש מהנהג (איש צבא בעברו) לאמן את הנער ולשפר את יכולותי�� הפיזיות והגבריות. בין הנהג לנער נקשר קשר עדין ואמיץ, אבל כשמסתיים ירח הדבש והחיים חוזרים למסלולם, הדברים משתנים.
מעל הספר מרחף מתח מיני ממשי אבל עדין והדמויות אפופות במין תחושת בדידות.
לאורך הספר תהיתי אם הוא יסתיים בטוב או ברע
אבל לא אספר את הסוף.
4.5 כוכבים

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A creepy and odd short novel. Taking place in England, Fergus is the 17 yr old son of a wealthy family. His mother died years ago, his father remarries. While he is on his honeymoon with his new bride, he asks their chauffeur to help Fergus exercise by taking up boxing. I won't go further, except to say there is much sexual tension, and a very dark ending. Great!

[Paolo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating novella, very condensed. Hartley's style is here quite different from his previous novels, almost stark. I enjoyed very much all the guess-work the author forces on the reader to explore the different emotions elicited by his words.

[seana · Rating 4 out of 5]

this went completely off the rails in the last twenty pages or so.. truly could not have predicted that that was where the story would end up. it was so shocking it bordered on ludicrous