Three Early Novels: The Old Boys / The Boarding-House / The Love Department

by William Trevor

William Trevor's  Last Stories  is forthcoming from Viking.

Three novels by “a master craftsman and a deep creative talent.”— The Times (London)
 
In his first novel, The Old Boys , a group of septuagenarians revive schoolboy conflicts in the election of the President of the Association. Now, however, the men possess a fiercer understanding of the things in life that matter—power, revenge, hatred, love, and the failure of love—and intrigue and deceit result.
 
In The Boarding House , William Wagner Bird takes in boarders whom society would never miss—if it ever noticed they were around. With these misfits, Bird creates a world where people are identified by their quirks rather than by their character. Then he makes a fatal mistake: He dies.
 
From the offices of The Love Department , Lady Dolores cures the heartaches of the lonely wives of Wimbledon with inimitable flourish and finesse. When the newest protégé, Edward Blakeston-Smith, is sent on a mission—to learn the secrets of seductive, scheming Septimus Tuam and stop him in his tracks—he learns about love and its friends and enemies.
 
In these early novels, one of the acclaimed masters of twentieth-century fiction created the dark landscape and compassionate characters that have become hallmarks of his extraordinary career.
 
“One of the very best writers of our era.”— The Washington Post Book World
 
“Mr. Trevor’s sheer intensity of entry into the lives of his people . . . proceeds to uncover new layers of yearning and pain, new angles of vision and credible thought.”— The New York Times Book Review

Genres: Novels, Fiction

663 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

William Trevor, KBE grew up in various provincial towns and attended a number of schools, graduating from Trinity College, in Dublin, with a degree in history. He first exercised his artistry as a sculptor, working as a teacher in Northern Ireland and then emigrated to England in search of work when the school went bankrupt. He could have returned to Ireland once he became a successful writer, he said, "but by then I had become a wanderer, and one way and another, I just stayed in England ... I hated leaving Ireland. I was very bitter at the time. But, had it not happened, I think I might never have written at all."

In 1958 Trevor published his first novel, A Standard of Behaviour, to little critical success. Two years later, he abandoned sculpting completely, feeling his work had become too abstract, and found a job writing copy for a London advertising agency. 'This was absurd,' he said. 'They would give me four lines or so to write and four or five days to write it in. It was so boring. But they had given me this typewriter to work on, so I just started writing stories. I sometimes think all the people who were missing in my sculpture gushed out into the stories.' He published several short stories, then his second and third novels, which both won the Hawthornden Prize (established in 1919 by Alice Warrender and named after William Drummond of Hawthornden, the Hawthornden Prize is one of the UK's oldest literary awards). A number of other prizes followed, and Trevor began working full-time as a writer in 1965.

Since then, Trevor has published nearly 40 novels, short story collections, plays, and collections of nonfiction. He has won three Whitbread Awards, a PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 1977 Trevor was appointed an honorary (he holds Irish, not British, citizenship) Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to literature and in 2002 he was elevated to honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE). Since he began writing, William Trevor regularly spends half the year in Italy or Switzerland, often visiting Ireland in the other half. He lived in Devon, in South West England, on an old mill surrounded by 40 acres of land.

Reviews

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book but previously reviewed each of the novels separately. So here’s a quick summary of the three with my impressions in case you tackle the three together as I did. These are Trevor’s first three novels that he was proud of, presented in chronological order. The first, The Old Boys, was published in 1964 when Trevor was 36. He wrote a book, ‘A Standard of Behavior,’ 6 years earlier but later disowned it and refused to have it reprinted. All three have humor but I’d say the second book has black humor and the third is farce.



In “The Old Boys,” A group of elderly men, all graduates of the same boys’ school, meet to pass the time, plan reunions and talk about donating piddling amounts to the school. As they reminisce about their trials and tribulations at the school, we are reminded that the British boys school system seems design to maximize bullying and intimidation and to terrify the smaller, timid, bookish, weaker boys. The main character had a good experience there; then he sent his son and it ruined him. The main character and his wife have a marriage of mutual animosity and constant bickering. Needless to say, much of their bickering centers around the failures of their son. Despite this grim outline, the book is interlaced with humor.

In “The Boarding-House,” eight people live in a run-down London rooming house. They have been hand-picked by the owner because of their loneliness. The founder of the boarding house seems genuinely sympathetic to lonely people (he has no family himself) and he keeps a notebook on them from which we learn about their backgrounds. One entry reads: “I weep when I think of Joseph Scribbin’s life, and the emptiness thereof.” Despite his attempts to provide these folks with the companionship of each other, they are still lonely because in different ways they are seriously damaged people in a psychological sense. There’s a lot of humor but it borders on black humor. In the first chapter, the founder of what he calls his “institution” dies. In his will leaves the boarding house to two of the most unlikely characters. Was this a cruel joke on his part or did he have something else in mind?

“The Love Department” is also humorous -- essentially a farce -- and also a satire on the suburban lives of the well-to-do. We see bored women who are married to caring, correct husbands who are married to their jobs. The main character is a young man who has some kind of social disability. He can’t take stress and in fact has been living in a monastery “retreat,” taking a break from life to calm his nerves. Even though he is in his 20’s he thinks “I am still a child.” He gets bored in his retreat and comes out to find a job. He is hired by Britain’s most popular “lovelorn columnist” who answers letters in the newspaper and gives advice to her female readers. She has received many letters from women in a London suburbs about a Don Juan type guy named Septimus Tuan. He breaks up marriages. So she hires this ingenue as a kind of private detective to “go out and find him and stop him.” He grabs his bicycle and the farce begins.

Three good reads although I think Trevor’s works improved over time and I prefer his later novels. William Trevor is one of my favorite authors and I have read about 15 of his novels and collections of short stories. Below are links to reviews of some others of my favorite novels of his:

Mrs Eckdorf in O'Neill's Hotel

After Rain

The Hill Bachelors

Fools of Fortune

Nights at the Alexandra

The Children of Dynmouth

Photo of the author from telegraph.co.uk

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've only read The Old Boys but for now, that suffices.

This is my first William Trevor -- and happens to be William Trevor's first novel.

In a certain light, it's quite entertaining and shows an eye/ear for great dialogue and painting exact characters. I wasn't in love with the topic, to be honest, i.e. the old boys who attended the same public school, now in their late 60s, early 70s.

Eccentric, grotesque, ridiculous are words that come to mind and Trevor uses all these qualities to good effect.

Not my cup of tea at this moment. May revisit the other stories later.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of three novels all feature Sienfeldian-like plots, that for the most part made up of small aspects of various characters daily lives. In order to make this lack of an over-reaching plot function, all three works feature well developed characters, who all are flawed in some fundamental way. It is through the interactions of these individuals that the plot advances. Trevor largely keeps above the fray that his characters find themselves in, but unlike Checkov who really seems truely neutral to their actions, the prose of Trevors work seems to lightly rebuke his protagonists flaws.

The first of the three novels is The Old Boys about a now geriatric committee formed from graduates of a youth boarding school for boys. The group serves as trustees as a sort, making contributions to their alma matter, and power struggles within it from grudes harbored from the days spent at the school 50 years ago largely drive the story. Amongst the most memorable characterizations is a wonderfully descriptive section of early senility as told in the first person.

The second novel is The Boarding House which traces the interconnected lives of a group of boarding house residents who had been "collected" over the years by the landlord who passes away early in the story. The boarding house residents are misfit loners and form each others company. The newly deceased former boarding house owner leaves the rental property bequeathed to the two most aggressive and cantankerous residents and the divergent plans that they both have make for interesting reading.

The last book of the three is titled The Love Department is the most unsteady of the three for me and traces the lives affected by a man who essentially extorts money from women under the guise of love. Perhaps the most flawed character in all the books, he borders on evil, and is not as well developed as the others. Contrasting to this man is a young naive boy who is tasked to follow his movements and although is better fleshed out, still falls somewhat flat.

Overall the collection was an intriguing read, mostly for the first two novels as opposed to the last. Trevors personailzation of his characters is reason enough to read this work.

[Colleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Trevor has definitely grown as a writer since these early works.