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The Four Winds of Love #3
The South Wind of Love: Being Volume Two of The Four Winds of Love, Book One
In this sumptuous and many-faceted novel, Compton Mackenzie tells the personal story of John Ogilvie against a background of Europe and America in the momentous years of the early Thirties.
428 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1937
20 people want to read
About the author
Compton Mackenzie
211 books84 followersCompton Mackenzie was born into a theatrical family. His father, Edward Compton, was an actor and theatre company manager; his sister, Fay Compton, starred in many of James M. Barrie's plays, including Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. He was educated at St Paul's School and Magdalen College, Oxford where he obtained a degree in Modern History.
Mackenzie was married three times and aside from his writing also worked as an actor, political activist, and broadcaster. He served with British Intelligence in the Eastern Mediterranean during World War I, later publishing four books on his experiences. Compton Mackenzie was from 1920–1923 Tenant of Herm and Jethou and he shares many similarities to the central character in D.H. Lawrence's short story The Man Who Loved Islands, despite Lawrence saying "the man is no more he than I am." Mackenzie at first asked Secker, who published both authors, not to print the story and it was left out of one collection.
Mackenzie was married three times and aside from his writing also worked as an actor, political activist, and broadcaster. He served with British Intelligence in the Eastern Mediterranean during World War I, later publishing four books on his experiences. Compton Mackenzie was from 1920–1923 Tenant of Herm and Jethou and he shares many similarities to the central character in D.H. Lawrence's short story The Man Who Loved Islands, despite Lawrence saying "the man is no more he than I am." Mackenzie at first asked Secker, who published both authors, not to print the story and it was left out of one collection.
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April 18, 2023
Swallowed up in "well I think it shall be over by Christmas!" dramatic irony which might have been more exciting in 1937, but which here chokes off even Mackenzie's wonderful sentence-level aesthetic sense. People must like this stuff, or else it wouldn't keep getting written, but it's just such a punishing comedown from the actual prewar Mackenzie. There's something fun about a roman a clef involving guys who are now forgotten, though. Read on for the inside dope about Gilbert Cannan being hen-pecked by his wife!
The East Wind escaped from the fallowness of the Parson's Progress books by taking advantage of postwar license and the different subject matter to lean on Mackenzie's obvious sensual bent to understanding other people, whether he's attracted to them or not. But this is an oddly sexless book—aside from one love interest, who is introduced on Page 1 and gone after the first third, we are mostly just told John is the handsome devil from East Wind, but he never thinks about it.
Really most of the plans laid in that first book are dropped. We skip ahead 10 years, we barely see Miriam, Emil is a British consul instead of a Nietzschean gay-incel genius, etc. John becomes a grand success but it happens off stage. Weird! Now this is the part where I write "but Sinister Street is so good!"
The East Wind escaped from the fallowness of the Parson's Progress books by taking advantage of postwar license and the different subject matter to lean on Mackenzie's obvious sensual bent to understanding other people, whether he's attracted to them or not. But this is an oddly sexless book—aside from one love interest, who is introduced on Page 1 and gone after the first third, we are mostly just told John is the handsome devil from East Wind, but he never thinks about it.
Really most of the plans laid in that first book are dropped. We skip ahead 10 years, we barely see Miriam, Emil is a British consul instead of a Nietzschean gay-incel genius, etc. John becomes a grand success but it happens off stage. Weird! Now this is the part where I write "but Sinister Street is so good!"
Displaying 1 of 1 review