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Sado
Reprint of the Hogarth Press edition originally published 1931.
274 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1931
17 people want to read
About the author
William Plomer
73 books8 followersWilliam Charles Franklyn Plomer CBE (he pronounced the surname as ploomer) was a South African and British author, known as a novelist, poet and literary editor. He was educated mostly in the United Kingdom, but described himself as an "Anglo-African-Asian".
He became famous in the Union of South Africa with his first novel, Turbott Wolfe, which had inter-racial love and marriage as a theme. He was co-founder of the short-lived literary magazine Voorslag ("Whiplash") with two other South African rebels, Roy Campbell and Laurens van der Post; it promoted a racially equal South Africa.
He spent the period from October 1926 to March 1929 in Japan, where he was friendly with Sherard Vines. There, according to biographers, he was in a same-sex relationship with a Japanese man. He was never openly gay during his lifetime; at most he alluded to the subject.
He then moved to England, and through his friendship with his publisher Virginia Woolf, entered the London literary circles. He became a literary editor, for Faber and Faber, and was a reader and literary adviser to Jonathan Cape, where he edited a number of Ian Fleming's James Bond series. Fleming dedicated Goldfinger to Plomer. He was active as a librettist, with Gloriana, Curlew River, The Burning Fiery Furnace and The Prodigal Son for Benjamin Britten.
He became famous in the Union of South Africa with his first novel, Turbott Wolfe, which had inter-racial love and marriage as a theme. He was co-founder of the short-lived literary magazine Voorslag ("Whiplash") with two other South African rebels, Roy Campbell and Laurens van der Post; it promoted a racially equal South Africa.
He spent the period from October 1926 to March 1929 in Japan, where he was friendly with Sherard Vines. There, according to biographers, he was in a same-sex relationship with a Japanese man. He was never openly gay during his lifetime; at most he alluded to the subject.
He then moved to England, and through his friendship with his publisher Virginia Woolf, entered the London literary circles. He became a literary editor, for Faber and Faber, and was a reader and literary adviser to Jonathan Cape, where he edited a number of Ian Fleming's James Bond series. Fleming dedicated Goldfinger to Plomer. He was active as a librettist, with Gloriana, Curlew River, The Burning Fiery Furnace and The Prodigal Son for Benjamin Britten.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 14, 2019
This is a hard to find book, which is just as well. Though not entirely without merit, frankly most of it is godawful.
The writing style is generally dated (even by the standards of the 1930s), often pretentious, and frequently ghastly -- rather like a scholar who tries his hand at fiction and fails miserably. The attempts at rendering Japanese people supposedly not fully mastering English are ludicrous -- they come across as more articulate than an English-born intellectual. In general the dialogues are artificial, which perhaps explains why so much of the story is told as a report rather than shown through the characters' interactions. Since the story is all about the development in the characters' relationships with one another, however, the writer's chosen tool (reporting what happened rather than showing it) is really not fit for purpose.
The main character, Lucas, is selfish and smug, and the worst thing is that the author doesn't seem to realise it. The other characters point out to him that he is selfish and smug, but the author clearly sides with his own protagonist and would have us think that the other characters' judgment is unreliable because of their dubious motives (jealousy in Iris' case) or character defects (excessive reserve, laziness and oversensitivity in Sado's case). I wondered, given that Plover had a same-sex relationship in Japan, if the book is not heavily autobiographical: it would explain, on the assumption that Plover modelled Lucas on himself, why he is so indulgent towards him (whilst rarely cutting the other characters some slack).
The most successful parts of the book are the descriptions of nature, which perhaps force the writer to get outside himself and his preoccupations with analysing society and relationships in light of the dubious principles he subscribes to. I was prepared for not finding in the book the most enlightened and sensitive account of a foreign culture, what with it having originally been published in 1931, but I hadn't banked on the relentless racial generalizations, gender stereotypes and ludicrous social psychology. Two very brief but telling examples: at one point Iris is not just 'angry' but 'an angry woman.' You know, what with women having a distinctive and invariable way of getting angry... And Sado, after a certain incident, is 'idle, preoccupied, impossible to talk to, Asiatic, suicidal and gloomy.' Yes, 'Asiatic' -- that being, for Plomer, a (negative) character trait or state of mind, apparently... And what about the European character being 'masculine' and the 'Asiatic' character being 'feminine'? Basically, the novel is a (short, thankfully) textbook case of Orientalism, and a particularly disappointing one, coming as it does from a white South African who advocated for racial equality.
Plover's failure to distance himself from his own prejudices results in a novel that ultimately yields a false social analysis and false psychological insights. Likewise, I suspect that a failure of self-examination (assuming the story is partly autobiographical) makes the resolution of the plot unconvincing -- almost as if the writer is trying to convince himself and the reader that all is well with how things turned out, when the way things turn out in fact precludes such a facile conclusion.
The only reason why this does not get one star is that the story's climax (when we are given to understand that, on a nature walk, Sado and Lucas finally make out) is done very well [SPOILER'S ALERT]: 'They walked for some time in silence and then sat down under a tree. Then he looked at Sado, and Sado looked at him, and he put his cigarettes back in his pocket.'
The writing style is generally dated (even by the standards of the 1930s), often pretentious, and frequently ghastly -- rather like a scholar who tries his hand at fiction and fails miserably. The attempts at rendering Japanese people supposedly not fully mastering English are ludicrous -- they come across as more articulate than an English-born intellectual. In general the dialogues are artificial, which perhaps explains why so much of the story is told as a report rather than shown through the characters' interactions. Since the story is all about the development in the characters' relationships with one another, however, the writer's chosen tool (reporting what happened rather than showing it) is really not fit for purpose.
The main character, Lucas, is selfish and smug, and the worst thing is that the author doesn't seem to realise it. The other characters point out to him that he is selfish and smug, but the author clearly sides with his own protagonist and would have us think that the other characters' judgment is unreliable because of their dubious motives (jealousy in Iris' case) or character defects (excessive reserve, laziness and oversensitivity in Sado's case). I wondered, given that Plover had a same-sex relationship in Japan, if the book is not heavily autobiographical: it would explain, on the assumption that Plover modelled Lucas on himself, why he is so indulgent towards him (whilst rarely cutting the other characters some slack).
The most successful parts of the book are the descriptions of nature, which perhaps force the writer to get outside himself and his preoccupations with analysing society and relationships in light of the dubious principles he subscribes to. I was prepared for not finding in the book the most enlightened and sensitive account of a foreign culture, what with it having originally been published in 1931, but I hadn't banked on the relentless racial generalizations, gender stereotypes and ludicrous social psychology. Two very brief but telling examples: at one point Iris is not just 'angry' but 'an angry woman.' You know, what with women having a distinctive and invariable way of getting angry... And Sado, after a certain incident, is 'idle, preoccupied, impossible to talk to, Asiatic, suicidal and gloomy.' Yes, 'Asiatic' -- that being, for Plomer, a (negative) character trait or state of mind, apparently... And what about the European character being 'masculine' and the 'Asiatic' character being 'feminine'? Basically, the novel is a (short, thankfully) textbook case of Orientalism, and a particularly disappointing one, coming as it does from a white South African who advocated for racial equality.
Plover's failure to distance himself from his own prejudices results in a novel that ultimately yields a false social analysis and false psychological insights. Likewise, I suspect that a failure of self-examination (assuming the story is partly autobiographical) makes the resolution of the plot unconvincing -- almost as if the writer is trying to convince himself and the reader that all is well with how things turned out, when the way things turn out in fact precludes such a facile conclusion.
The only reason why this does not get one star is that the story's climax (when we are given to understand that, on a nature walk, Sado and Lucas finally make out) is done very well [SPOILER'S ALERT]: 'They walked for some time in silence and then sat down under a tree. Then he looked at Sado, and Sado looked at him, and he put his cigarettes back in his pocket.'
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