Not Honour More

The Second Trilogy #3

by Joyce Cary

Joyce Cary (1888-1957) is indisputably one of the finest English novelists of this century. His reputation at his death equaled those of such contemporaries as Aldous Huxley and Evelyn Waugh. His exuberant style allowed him to create a vivid array of men and women whose stories embody the conflicts of their day and whose characters are beautifully realized. Written in his last years, his “Second Trilogy” ( Prisoner of Grace ,  Except the Lord , and  Not Honour More ) shows the mature Cary at his most brilliant, as he unfolds the tragicomedy of private lives compromised by politics and religion. While in his earlier trilogy ( Herself Surprised ,  To Be a Pilgrim , and  The Horse’s Mouth ) he pits the visionary artist against an indifferent but by no means dull world, in his masterful “Second Trilogy” he maps that gray landscape between good and evil where life is at its most dangerous. The concluding novel in Joyce Cary’s “Second Trilogy,”  Not Honour More  (1955) takes up at the point  Prisoner of Grace  (1952) ends. The setting is Palm Cottage, the remnant property of the Slapton-Latter family and now the scene of an unhappy ménage consisting of Captain Jim Latter (retired), his wife Nina (née Woodville), and her former husband, Chester Nimmo. It is 1926, the year of the General Strike. Nimmo, once a Cabinet Minister, sees the situation as his chance for a political comeback, while Jim, head of the emergency civilian police, feels it his duty to take his stand, however desperate, against “the grabbers and tapeworms… sucking the soul out of England.” For Nina, the trapped go-between, their inevitable clashes can lead nowhere but disaster. Not Honour More is Jim’s book, “my statement, so help me, as I hope to be hung.”

Genres: Fiction

309 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

Cary now undertook his great works examining historical and social change in England during his own lifetime. The First Trilogy (1941–44) finally provided Cary with a reasonable income, and The Horse's Mouth (1944) remains his most popular novel. Cary's pamphlet "The Case for African Freedom" (1941), published by Orwell's Searchlight Books series, had attracted some interest, and the film director Thorold Dickinson asked for Cary's help in developing a wartime movie set partly in Africa. In 1943, while writing The Horse's Mouth, Cary travelled to Africa with a film crew to work on Men of Two Worlds.

Cary travelled to India in 1946 on a second film project with Dickinson, but the struggle against the British for national independence made movie-making impossible, and the project was abandoned. The Moonlight (1946), a novel about the difficulties of women, ended a long period of intense creativity for Cary. Gertrude was suffering from cancer and his output slowed for a while.

Gertrude died as A Fearful Joy (1949) was being published. Cary was now at the height of his fame and fortune. He began preparing a series of prefatory notes for the re-publication of all his works in a standard edition published by Michael Joseph.

He visited the United States, collaborated on a stage adaptation of Mister Johnson, and was offered a CBE, which he refused. Meanwhile he continued work on the three novels that make up the Second Trilogy (1952–55). In 1952, Cary had some muscle problems which were originally diagnosed as bursitis, but as more symptoms were noted over the next two years, the diagnosis was changed to that of motor neuron disease, a wasting and gradual paralysis that was terminal.

As his physical powers failed, Cary had to have a pen tied to his hand and his arm supported by a rope in order to write. Finally, he resorted to dictation until unable to speak, and then ceased writing for the first time since 1912. His last work, The Captive and the Free (1959), first volume of a projected trilogy on religion, was unfinished at his death on March 29, 1957.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

By far the best of the trilogy, this book uses Jim’s perspective, the man most removed from Chester Nimmo, and picks up with the plot of the first book. The institutionalization of Chester is finalized in this book. Jim is made to acknowledge pragmatically after countless performances that honour is a dead notion, the cult of personality trumps all. The Chester he knows is not a man, he is a corruption that corrupts those around him.

[F Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked it as much as I liked the first two in the series. Once again Cary creates a totally different voice and point of view. I loved the political context of the personal story.