Enemies of Promise

by Cyril Connolly, Alex Woloch (Foreword)

“Whom the gods wish to destroy,” writes Cyril Connolly, “they first call promising.” First published in 1938 and long out of print, Enemies of Promise , an “inquiry into the problem of how to write a book that lasts ten years,” tests the boundaries of criticism, journalism, and autobiography with the blistering prose that became Connolly’s trademark. Connolly here confronts the evils of domesticity, politics, drink, and advertising as well as novelists such as Joyce, Proust, Hemingway, and Faulkner in essays that remain fresh and penetrating to this day.
 
 “A fine critic, compulsive traveler, and candid autobiographer. . . . [Connolly] lays down the law for all writers who wanted to count. . . . He had imagination and decisive images flashed with the speed of wit in his mind.”—V. S. Pritchett, New York Review of Books
 
“Anyone who writes, or wants to write, will find something on just about every single page that either endorses a long-held prejudice or outrages, and that makes it a pretty compelling read. . . . You end up muttering back at just about every ornately constructed pensée that Connolly utters, but that’s one of the joys of this book.”—Nick Hornby, The Believer
 
“A remarkable book.”—Anthony Powell

 


 

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Essays, Memoir, Writing, Literature, Criticism

287 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

Cyril Connolly was born in Coventry, Warwickshire in 1903. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford he was a regular contributor to the New Statesman in the 1930s.

Connolly also co-edited Horizon (1939-41) with Stephen Spender and later was literary editor of the The Observer. Books by Connolly include the novel, The Rock Pool (1938), the autobiographical, Enemies of Promise (1938) and The Unquiet Grave (1944), a collection of aphorisms, reflections and essays.

After the Second World War Connolly was the principal book reviewer of the Sunday Times. He also published several other books including The Condemned Playground (1945), Previous Convictions (1963) and the Modern Movement (1965). Cyril Connolly died in 1974.

Reviews

[Justin Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the upside, the next time anyone complains about how The Literary Establishment has always forced people to write in single genres and thus distorted the Genius Writer, I can point to one more book as showing what rubbish that statement is. On the downside, I now know why this is more cult classic and less just classic. I was led to expect much more.

I thought the first section by far the most interesting. Connolly's understanding of literature, and particularly literary history, was ahead of its time and light years ahead of most contemporary polemicists, who continue to insist that there's some everlasting ideal of literature and that we'll only get to that if we [insert your least favorite literary trend here; I go with 'write memoirs'.] Connolly knew the truth: literary trends are entirely reactive. Naturalism was followed by modernism, which was followed by various anti-modernist reactions, which were followed by 'post-modernism,' which is now being followed by various returns to either a) sincerity or b) modernist technique. Each movement--other than naturalism, for me--will produce a few books worth reading. Cyril read everything of his time, it seems, and his simple categories still work today, as we swing between 'vernacular' (naturalism, anti-modernism, sincerity) and 'mandarin' (decadence, modernism, post-modernism, neo-modernism). And he comes up with some odd pairings; for instance, Maugham, Joyce and Lawrence, all of whom were fixated on the word 'grey.' On the 'vernacular' side, he splices together sentences by Orwell, Isherwood and Hemingway, which is a pretty convincing way of showing how dull they can be.

The second section describes the 'situation of the author,' and is fairly dull.

The third section is memoir meant to fulfill the rules laid down in part one. It doesn't succeed; I'd much rather read Powell's autobiography; four times over I'd rather read Powell's Dance to the Music of Time. But that's mainly because I don't really think high school is a formative experience for most people; it might have been for Connolly, but that doesn't come through all that much. I should probably re-read it, though.

Special bonus marks for recognizing that 18th century prose was the high point of English literature.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I have always disliked myself at any given moment; the total of such moments is my life."

[Jacob Hurley · Rating 1 out of 5]

https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/...

I read this book on the recommendation of this blogger, The Last Psychiatrist, an excellent psychoanalyst. I thought it was something lighter & more contemporary, but as it turns out, Cyril Connolly was a relatively prominent literary critic of the 30s and 40s, and this book is as much a discussion of the contemporary literary scene as it is an autobiography and a normative discussion of the practice of writing. This hodge-podge book is bound together by its shadow theses, being ultimately a symposium on Connolly himself, trying to ascertain why he had, to that point & also thereafter, failed to write a great work of literature itself. As I will try to expose, I think Connolly did an excellent job in that, but perhaps in a way only the astute reader can appreciate.

The literary criticms focuses mainly on Connolly's distinction between what he calls the 'mandarin' and 'vulgar' styles, that is, verbose writing (exemplified by Henry James) and terser, everyday sort of language (Hemingway). While Connolly attempts to justify a union of all writers who use ornate language, nothing to justify the existence of the 'mandarin' as a concept exists; he traces the origin of the style back to the 17th century epoch of Addison, and seems to argue that it is defined by a certain irrelevance of content in motivating the ornateness, but later tends to generalize this criticism onto later writers, such as Proust and James, without any discussion of the positive merits of such a style. It seems that Connolly thought of literature almost exclusively in terms of sentences, and that choice of sentence length is an abstract decision which cannot be traced to any other facets or motivations of writing, which indeed Connolly seems generally disinterested in acknowledging. His discussion of the vulgar style is generally unfocused and seemingly without insight or comment, being mostly a series of excerpts from Hemingway and no-name contemporaries with some basic summaries of syntax thereafter. It appears Connolly's intent with this section was to show his technical and wide-spread knowledge of literature, as though to disprove that his failure as a writer was one of knowledge, but in general this section, which is guilty of the same vaccuous ornament and hyperbolic diction that he criticizes in the worst of his 'mandarin stylists', is less an analysis and more a slinging of unsubstantiated value judgments on the letters of his day, which include a bizarre dismissal of Proust as an 'onanist' with nothing to say, and dubious predictions that DH Lawrence and TS Eliot would be forgotten while Alduous Huxley's novels (other than Brave New World, not mentionned here) and Rudyard Kipling would become cornerstones for centuries to come, or even that WH Auden was the only poet of merit in the generation after Eliot. One gets the sense very strongly that Connolly had very little appreciation of any of these writers as anything other than compilers of well-written (or otherwise) sentences, and viewed them as an impeccably perfect echelon of figures among whom he deserved to be an equal, perhaps in the way Stan idolized Eminem.

The discussion of writing in the second part had picqued my interest, the excerpts which I had read seeming to indicate that a thorough defense of the rigorous, unromantic work ethic of Flaubert would be presented. Indeed, Connolly seems to have gathered from his obsessive interest in literary figures that writing demands absolute attention, and that dilligent focus was vastly more important than the cultivation of a romantic genius. Connolly seems to have taken this lesson to heart, and proceeded to a militant tract describing every non-writing activity of a writer as a degenerative distraction. Interest, let alone participation, in politics and religion, as well as socializing and romancing, will indelibly destroy a writer's ability to focus on his writing. He does not bother to refute, nor discuss, the countless contradictions in nearly every writer of note discussed (or not discussed) favorably in this book. I suppose there is a coherence of argument between the first part and the second, given that Connolly had refused to think about writing from any perspective other than that of sentence-construction, and here he advocates that the excellent writer should indeed have no other preoccupation in life or in writing.

The third part, which is longer than the first two, is an extended autobiography of Connolly, discussing briefly his childhood spent in South Africa and Ireland before segueing into an intricately detailed account of his time at the famous private school Eton. Discounting content, this part of the book seems to further evidence Connolly's failure to write a good book -- certainly this account of his own life is abysmally written on nearly every level imagineable. Connolly makes at first attempts to describe the natural beauty of South Africa, but succeeds in only listing a few types of plants before segueing into a psychotic discussion of the importance of the resultant feelings to himself, which is so abstract that the reader is unsure what these emotions are ... he does the same for Ireland, which almost entirely lacks details other than “going to Ireland was important to me” repeated ad nauseam, so much so that it culminates in possibly the most degenerate panacea of anglo-saxon appropriation of Irishness, as Connolly rants hysterically about how he was Irish (claiming, as these fucken retards always do, a couple drops of hibernian blood through a distant ancestor his mother) as he sits alone in his wealthy parents' Irish vacation home. It seems Connolly had spent the entirety of his youth sitting around with his parents, obsessed with the fact that he was capable of feeling emotion, and spent his life preciously guarding feelings of the impossibly romantic importance surrounding this capacity for emotion.

The section on his schooling is almost unbelievable; he spends the hundred-plus pages of this section autistically describing every tiny permutation of closeness and separation to his friends, who are never properly described other than vague Mann-like reveries about their nobility and brightness, and dormitory politics about who was prefect, how victimized the underclassmen were, etc, etc. It is here that Connolly gets so involved he forgets his mantra of writerly detachment from the world -- it is abundantly clear that something about the English private school experience, and its social heirarchy that he gradually ascended until he was himself a prefect, was the absolute zenith of his own life, against which everything else pales by comparison. Unfortunately, it is difficult to appreciate this, even in a removed fashion, since Connolly neglects proper description in exchange for a narratorial strategy of technical discussions of student politics mixed in with abysmally pretentious diaries and letters he had written at the time, all of which smack of hyper-hubristic claims about his own romantic genius and untenably stupid (and extremely prolific) declarations of a skeptical philosophy ... and, indeed, early manifestations of Connolly's life-long love of sweeping, irrational value judgements slapped onto writers. The general theme, as Connolly stops to make clear ot the reader, of all this is the portrait of his own youthful romanticism, which I suppose he expects us to frown upon, but which is all the same presented with an intense fascination with its importance & a warm irony that seems to undercut any severe self-criticism. He also feels the need to make clear to the reader that he graduated as “an eighteen year old, who had never had sex or masturbated”.

At the end of this section, Connolly, as though taking a bow, comments obtusely that “somewhere in these pages is the cause of my own sloth”, that is, sloth for failing to have written a great novel. I suspect Connolly understood this own text as rather a sort of manifesto on his own genius, a sort of trailer to excite the reader for the great novel to come in a few years' time (and which, of course, never did). To me, this presumption is precisely the explanation for Connolly's failure -- that he is a genuinely stupid person with severe narcissistic self-obsession, masked as is common with anglos in a paper-thin self-deprecation, but without the intelligence for self-analysis or indeed anything other than obsessive reveries over the importance of his profound emotions. Given this type of personality, it seems to me his obsession with literature was less a love for writing, and more a received respect for letters that secreted the archetype of 'great writer' as a permanent brand in his superego, therefore causing his entire reading experience to be no more than a glazed-over-eyes skimming as he dreamt of one day becoming as well respected as this great writer; from here follows naturally the inclination to fixate on sentences, being the lowest-order element in literature and the thing most accessible to those incapable of sustained thought about anything other than themself.

This psychoanalytic debasement seems to be mostly originated in his time at the school, sure enough -- his deranged obsession with the private school system (which seems to have been a sort of nightmarish Spartan bureaucracy of being beaten & thereafter being the one do to the beating) is the clear ur-phaenom of his entire mindset. His childhood experiences paint a portrait of a classic English'man', being an essentially dead-eyed and thoughtless person, which easily found its entire raison-d'etre in the degenerative instution of adolescent public schooling, culminating in the type of person Deleuze and Guattari describe as the micro-fascist, the ultimately imbecilic person with no meaning or value to their lives beyond the psychotic glee of blind participation in an arbitrary institution. Connolly, it is clear, could conceive of life in profounder terms than as a closed system of arbitrary values, nominally but superficially bound up with 'intellectualism', a sort of fugal labyrinthe in which he must ascend to the top, something which associated in a school with nothing more than the dumb passage of time; it seems Connolly took from his schooling experience the presumption that one day he, too, would become the faceless superior to which, he felt, he was forced to bow in reading. It is in a way, really, the ultimate breeding grounds for a mechanistic narcissism. I'm astounded and extremely disappointed that the Last Psychiatrist, otherwise so sharp and wily a thinker, read this entire book and came away with a respect for Connolly, who is indeed perhaps the ultimate type of Lacanian freak that he had set out to describe in his blog.

I REPUDIATE Cyril Connolly, and all like him; I feel so strongly about this that I am prepared to accept a Manichean worldview where all is good inasmuch as it is not like this type of degenerate and genuinely sub-human existence. This mediocrity, this fucken retard, this twisted shadow of Gaddis' Otto (stripped of his charming aloofness) is the absolute nadir of humanity, a negative goal that all human activity should strive to prevent and admonish. One finds here an argument for abortion, for water-boarding, for an absolute confirmation of the banality of evil -- and indeed, this book has absolutely answered my years-long concern with the problem of whether words alone are enough to make someone an irredeemably bad person. There can be no doubt about this, now. So -- what is the remedy? What can be done? I can only repeat what Orson Welles said, when asked what might be done about John Landis, director of Animal House -- Kill him.

God, in his infinite wisdom and beauty, pre-emptively satisfied this prayer fifty years ago.

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the first part of this book, Connolly examines the dual trends of stripped-down, vernacular storytelling and elevated, stylistically ambitious prose in early 20th-century novels. He looks at the strengths and weaknesses of both styles and proposes a synthesis. It's interesting stuff, rendered dated in its prescriptions by the fact that the dam was about burst - a vast array of styles far beyond the elitist 'mandarin' or demotic 'vernacular' of his analysis were to explode on the literary scene. And yet, the essential ebb and flow of forces of stylistic complication and simplification are still a valid way to view literary history.

In the second part, he lists the factors that can prevent a writer from realising his promise. Some of these are largely valid and others seem a bit ridiculous - try telling Shirley Jackson that a pram in the hallway is the writer's worst enemy! His analysis of the alleged limitations of a homosexual writer are ludicrous and there is a tacit assumption that the promising writer is male, despite his acknowledgment of the existence of Virginia Woolf and Djuna Barnes. The thing with all his enemies of promise, is that I can list writers who have realised their promise despite them, but still Connolly does provide a useful list of things that the indisciplined or simply insufficiently driven or inspired writer can use as ways to drift away from writing.

The third section is a memoir of his youth which serves as a fascinating study of the mores of a world that vanished with the world wars, an interesting study in self-analysis and a useful complement to his classmate George Orwell's memories of some of the same aspects.

A very mixed book with some streaks of totally brilliant analysis and much that is contentious at best. Definitely a mandarin book, style-wise!

[C. B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intriguing book which captures a certain literary mood of the 1930s well. I admire it for its formal experimentation (which the Alex Woloch introduction highlights), and for its insights into the pitfalls of style and literary ambition. The final part, entitled 'A Georgian Boyhood', is of particular interest to historians of sexuality.

[Clark Hays · Rating 4 out of 5]

“There is but one crime, to escape from our talent.”

Cyril Connolly (1903 – 1974) was a British reviewer, critic and writer of distinction. Connolly’s Unquiet Grave — a despondent meditation on creativity, and existence, in a world challenged by the destruction of World War II — is one of my favorite books. I finally got around to ordering Enemies of Promise, first published in 1938 and designed to solve the problem of how to write an enduring book — by his count, one that stands for at least a decade.

The book is split into three major parts. The first is an audit of British writing, tracing the rise and fall of some of the well-known authors and poets (many of whom were not familiar to me) as well as their main styles of writing. This section really brought to life Connolly’s breadth of knowledge related to the landscape of English letters. The second part is focused on advice for how writers can live up to their own promise and produce a lasting work — this includes some of the pitfalls they must avoid. As an author and a reader, I found this section enlightening and at time maddening, given the similar challenges facing writers then and now. The third section is a personal history of his time at Eton, a boy’s school, and the tremendous psychological torture he endured that shaped his later career.

As this book makes clear, Connolly had an admirable grasp on the history of creative writing, especially in England, and offered some keen insights for writers that still ring true today. And, best of all, he has a unique, lyrical but imminently approachable style that makes his writing sing and spotlights the agile workings of an impossibly sharp mind.

“Writing is a more impure art than music or painting. It is an art, but it is also the medium in which millions of inartistic people express themselves, describe their work, sell their goods, justify their conduct, propagate their ideas. It is the vehicle of all business and propaganda.”

“At the present time for a book to be produced with any hope of lasting half a generation, of outliving a dog or a car, of surviving the lease of a house or the life of a bottle of champagne, it must be written against the current, in a prose that makes demands both on the resources of our language and the intelligence of the reader.”

“Our language is a sulky and inconstant beauty and at any given moment it is important to know what liberties she will permit.”

“To-day, the forces of life and progress are ranging on one side, those of reaction and death on the other. We are having to choose between democracy and fascism, and fascism is the enemy of art.”

“…drunkenness is a substitute for art; it is in itself a low form of creation.”

I love his suggestion that readers who enjoy a book get in the habit of sending a small tip or other token of appreciation to the author. That is a trend I certainly wish had caught on (though I’d settle for honest reviews)!

The third section about life at boy’s school, though it gave me my favorite line in the book — “I have always disliked myself at any given moment; the total of such moments is my life.” — was an odd addition. It certainly presented tragic insights into the cruelty of those days, but did little to get to the core question of how to write a book that endures.

Setting aside the curious — but moving — excursion into Pink Floyd-level schoolboy terrors, did Connolly’s book meet the very challenge he set out to resolve? Probably. Though his name and reputation aren’t exactly well-known almost 80 years later, there’s much of value to be found in his writing (once you get past the, what seems now, stilted and mostly masculine language) for writers, and artists of all stripes.

Not only did Connolly make a life and a career out of thinking seriously and deeply about literature and creativity, he also seemed — scarred by the loss of life accompanying WWII — almost prescient in his defense of art and his despair at a world willing to risk everything for, ultimately, nothing:

“At present the realities are life and death, peace and war, fascism and democracy; we are in a world which may soon become unfit for humans to live in.”

Artistic work may not last longer than the life of a bottle of champagne, but it seems despair about the short-sightedness of global politics — if we can’t learn the lessons Connolly laid out 80 years ago — will always endure.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really only found the first third of this book interesting. I think it lays out an excellent premise in what Connolly dubs "The Predicament". The predicament is between a more ornate type of writing and a stripped down more direct version.

I found Connolly's dissection of the two styles rather lopsided. He seemed to lambaste ornate writing with an excessive fierceness. Seemingly chalking its use to insecure writers uncertain of what they were trying to say. When he does find merit in this mode of writing, he seems to tie appreciation to its work as only being possible in a bygone age and for a ever shrinking leisurely class of readers.

When he discusses the more straight forward journalistic type of writing he recognizes that it is the style more in favor at the time, and doesn't really expand much further beyond that. Connolly then seems to abandon the predicament he's exploring and wraps everything up with a rather convoluted summary indicating that trends between the style are entirely reactive. The implication being that writer's fluctuate between the styles to rebel against what is popular during the time, essentially motivated by a rebellious ego.

There's not much expansion on this idea, which is a shame as Connolly himself states that egotism spoils a writer's own work. He later posits that there is gulf fixed between those who dislike the ornate and those who love it, and that the only true crime an author can commit is to to flee from their talent. So although Connolly doesn't himself clearly state this, the solution to the predicament is to ignore the ebb and flow of the shifting trends of the literary landscape, to resist the pull of the ego and the need to set one apart from the pack, and simply write authentically without waste. Be true to yourself as an artist and consider it no business of yours as to how critics may categorize your writing style.

That sentiment, which Connolly circles around but never really pins down, is characteristically Stoic in nature. And for that I understand why folks like Ryan Holiday have praised this book so highly. This book, of rather the first third of it, serves as a good distillation of how a Stoic writer should approach their work.

While interesting and valuable, the other 2/3 of the book are inescapably dull. His biography is supposed to demonstrate writing that will last, essentially transcending the fluctuation of the two trends. Sadly it does not, resulting in a uneven book that seems like an abandoned exploration into the predicament writers face.

[Sus · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a rather surprising and confusing book; only the middle third is like I thought it would be (which is also the part advertised by the title.) Since this section is by far the shortest, it leaves me with a lot of time to reflect on the other two.

The first eighty or so pages -- which lay out "the Predicament," as Connolly calls it -- are given over, as he puts it, to "the problem of how to write a book which lasts ten years." This was, now that I think about it, an advertisement that attracted me -- as a reader I am much interested in writers' views on writing. What I had not realized is that, in enquiring into style and form in the novel, Connolly was interested in a specific ten years: that is, the years that were to immediately follow the writing of his book; and that for his data he drew upon books that had appeared in the thirty or so years preceding. Which is, I suppose, reasonable enough. But the reader should be aware that, in addressing this problem, Connolly is not so much interested in the properties we might look at as those which make a a book "timeless." Instead, he is very interested in figuring out which of the two kinds of literary prose that (as he viewed it) were paramount in 1938 were likely to still be au courant in 1948, given both the cultural and literary tends as he foresaw them, and the approaching convulsions of history.

What all this means is that Part I of Enemies of Promise is a detailed, witty and absorbing snapshot of the state of English literature in 1938, at least as it stood to an educated, perceptive, snobby English reader. (I use "snobby" with consideration, by the way; Connolly applies the word to himself and to his class without apparent embarrassment or remorse.) If you are the kind of reader who is interested in Modernism, its reception, and early twentieth-century literary culture, you ought to find this very interesting reading. If, however, you were hoping to learn what Cyril Connolly thinks makes a really good, timeless and lasting book, you will be disappointed. This is not a writer on how to write. (In fact, as one gradually realizes in reading Part III, this book is a writer explaining his view of not writing, and how he came to do it.)

Part III of the book is, as Connolly faithfully labels it, "A Georgian Boyhood." This is a very curious piece of autobiography; at least, it reads that way to me. Upon reflection I suspect that it is probably almost impossible for a contemporary American reader of 2009 to take away from this piece anything like what Connolly intended. It is woven through, indeed undergirded, with what appear to be cultural assumptions regarding what aspects of the story his audience will find interesting. For instance, he begins the tale by apologizing for starting off with "the early aura of large houses, fallen fortunes and county families common to so many English biographers." Personally, I found this part of the story absorbing -- young Cyril Connolly grew up in castles! -- but apparently it is such a common theme among the kind of people he thinks about, and for whom he writes, that he fears it stale and clichéd.

Where things get really strange, though, is when he gets us through his early schooling and takes us along to his years at Eton, the great and storied "public" (i.e. private) boys' school that has channeled so many of England's elite. Connolly's experiences at Eton make up the bulk of this section, and... I find myself of two minds about this part. One the one hand, reading it as the reader I am -- American, twenty-first-century, not soaked in English ideas about 'character' and class -- the details Connolly piles on about the twiddling ins-and-outs of Eton life, his constantly shifting array of friends, his political maneuvering, his prizes, become self-indulgent and then very quickly intolerable. One wants to shout: "I don't bloody care who you 'shouldered on' with the Michaelmas term you got into Pop, you idiot!"

On the other hand, I have the sort of impression that Connolly probably thought, and rightly, that these infinite details would be fascinating to his readers, just because they were a true story of Eton -- which is, after all, like Harvard is to Americans; only now imagine you could get into Harvard at thirteen. It is a place with an aura, and one that lays great expectations for its students. And, of course, there is the fact that a lot of the names he drops turned out to be people with Wikipedia entries and Orders of the British Empire. Of the classmates Connolly mentioned, I may only have recognized George Orwell (and distantly, distantly, Cecil Beaton), but to the English many of those self-absorbed spotty fourteen-year-olds turned out to be Famous Names.

One more thing about this section: though I feel extremely uncharitable for thinking it, Connolly's statements about homosexuality seem depressing to me. From his autobiographical writing, it's blatantly clear that Connolly is himself homosexual. He starts out as a sensitive child, and goes on to fall in romantic love with a series of boys and young men throughout his childhood and adolescence, even as, by his own descriptions, he becomes more and more witty, fussy, and dramatically and aesthetically inclined. Bitchy, even; queeny, rather. (I feel uncharitable, as I say, but what's a reader to do? It's his own autobiography.)

And yet Connolly appears to go on to associate homosexuality with immaturity and emotional stuntedness. As, I suppose, most people of his time did. But what does it say about the man himself, and his views of his own spiritual, artistic, personal development? There is really surprisingly little self-revelation in the book's 120 pages of "autobiography." I suppose that is something else I found disappointing.

Where, then, after all this, are the Enemies of Promise? Well, they do actually sort of show up in that Part III -- in Connolly's depressing, yet understandable, conclusion, which is basically that the British elite school system ruins people for life -- but where they are mostly is in Part II. Which, to tell the truth, sort of seems like it could be read on its own, and is the most vivid part of the book to me. Here, Connolly audaciously -- and somehow without wasting words, as he does almost everywhere else in the text -- grabs a passage from a poem by George Crabbe about weeds that grow on a heath and make it impossible to plant rye, and sails off into big allegorical country with a single bravado postulate. "Let the 'thin harvest' {of the poem} be the achievement of the young author," he says, "the 'wither'd ears' their books, then the 'militant thistles' represent politics, the 'nodding poppies' day-dreams, conversation, drink and other narcotics, the 'blue Bugloss' is the clarion call of journalism, the 'slimy mallow' that of worldly success, the 'charlock' is sex with its obsessions and the 'clasping tares' are the ties of domesticity." And he goes on to discuss each of them, one by one, in admirably succint chapters. That I found interesting. It's food for thought, and I can recommend reading it.

[David]

Connolly's critical writings in the first half of the volume have, even when I disagree with him, the sense of a mind at work carrying on the conversation about literature. His reminiscences of schooldays, the second half, I find repulsive--a masterpiece of detail concerning a privileged, entitled, posturing, pretentious crowd of annoying showoffs. If this book is accurate about the Eton/Oxford social life of the 1920s, it is awful--a fabulous example of everything that's wrong with entitled poseurs and elites.

[Ratko Radunović · Rating 5 out of 5]

„Obećanje“ u naslovu Konolijeve knjige je zapravo pisanje dobre fikcije. Drugim riječima, možete proći kroz najbolje kurseve kreativnog pisanja (kao što je onaj poznati, u američkoj državi Ajova, koji staje desetine hiljada dolara za jedno ljeto), ali ako u vama ne postoji nešto što inherentno ne naginje bezmalo perverznoj ljubavi prema lijepo satkanoj rečenici, sumnjam da ćete dospjeti u priliku da ovu vrstu uživanja ikada ozbiljno shvatite. To je bezmalo jedini posao za koji ne postoji škola, jer, izuzev onih najrudimentarnijih, ne odlikuje se fanatičnim slijeđenjem definicija i pravila.

Uostalom, na časovima kreativnog pisanja profesori mogu biti i profesionalni pisci, i oni su ti koji učenicima određuju izvjesna pravila – zato jer jedino oni znaju za njih budući da se njima svakodnevno služe. Nasuprot tome, neki drugi pisci znaju neka sasvim druga pravila. U pitanju je, dakle, tipično prenošenje sopstvenog iskustva, tako da nikada nije sigurno da li ćete se navići na odgovarajući niz pravila, budući da ono što nekome odgovara ne mora nužno da znači da će odgovarati i sljedećem potencijalnom autoru. Hemingvejevo iskustvo je, reklo bi se, nadasve prijemčivo: „krvarite po pisaćoj mašini“; u najboljem slučaju, cjelokupno autorovo znanje o tome najčešće podsjeća na fiziološku naviku odlaska u toalet.

Stoga jedno od najiskrenijih definicija jeste pravilo Stivena Kinga iz njegove korisne knjige o upotrebi jezika (i, vrijedi dodati, možda i posljednje dobre knjige koju je objavio), O pisanju: memoar o zanatu (2000), nedvosmiseno oblikovane po uzoru na Konolijeve Neprijatelje obećanja: „Ako nemate vremena za čitanje, onda nemate ni alata za pisanje.“

King u svojoj knjizi daje izvrsne savjete o tome kako pisati fikciju i kako naći ritam u jeziku, a potom, prirodno, sve to sâm prvi krši u vlastitim romanima. Dakle, nije bitno samo znati pravila, već i kako ih koristiti. Uostalom, ono što punog srca napišemo jednog dana, već naredne sedmice ćemo preoblikovati u nešto sasvim treće.

Kad smo već kod toga, knjige o pisanju fikcije, kao i filmskog scenarija, ne prestaju da se štampaju, međutim one zaista korisne i koje mogu da posluže kao istinski uvid u nečije iskustvo su zaista malobrojne*.

[*Još par vrijednih i vrlo prijemčivih knjiga o pisanju iskazane kroz primjere fikcije velikih pisaca su: The Art of Fiction i The Practice of Writing Dejvida Lodža, How Fiction Works Džejmsa Vuda, Aspects of the Novel E.M. Forstera i The Art of the Novel Milana Kundere; ovima se mogu pridodati i dva Stajnbekova dnevnika gdje su iznešene sve frustracije tokom pisanja dva njegova najpoznatija romana.]

Izuzev djela pomenutih u fusnoti, pisci sličnih „uputstava“ su ljudi koji nisu napisali bezmalo ništa kvalitetno, i stoga smatraju da su i te kako kompetentni da nam kažu šta je sve potrebno da bi se stvorio valjan roman ili mnogo dobar film. Radi se upravo o tome da svako ima svoju predstavu kako fikcija treba da izgleda i zvuči – i to je nešto što se vrlo lako stiče – ali da se najgore snalazi upravo u otjelotvoravanju sopstvenih smjernica na papir.

Bilo kako bilo, potpisnik ovih redova i dalje vjeruje da je najbolji savjet za pisanje dao Henri Džejms: „Postoji samo jedan recept – voditi veliku brigu o kulinarstvu.“

Tumačite ovo po svom nahođenju.

Konoli (1903-74) je bio engleski Edmund Vilson, najznamenitiji kritičar onog doba i pretjerano temperamentna i diskurzivna individua u onih ko-zna-koliko miliona riječi koje je napisao tokom karijere; lijeni, debeli, razočarani bonvivan u vječitim dugovima, koji je karijeru sagradio na opanjkavanju samog sebe iz razloga što ga je – ako mu je vjerovati – upravo mukotrpna karijera nedjeljnog kritičara spriječila da napiše svoje remek-djelo.

The Unquiet Grave, ili Nespokojni grob, objavljen je anonimno – odnosno s potpisom alter ega Palinurusa (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...) – pred kraj Drugog svjetskog rata, zapravo je više njegov paskalovski Pensées, samo o književnosti i mitologiji, pamflet u nastajanju od bezmalo 18 godina. U pitanju je herbarijum fragmentarnih misli, mikroesejistike i citata (pojedinih na francuskom jeziku) o literaturi, pisanju, životu, samoprijegoru i sličnim jadima. Hemingvej je Nespokojni grob nazvao „knjigom koja, ma koliko čitalaca ikada bude imala, nikada neće imati dovoljno.“

Samodopadna mentalna lijenost je u potpunosti engleska bolest, glasi jedna od Konolijevih generalno nevelikih i naizgled nasumičnih i nepovezanih misli u pomenutoj sveščici. Njena prva rečenica nije puki sažetak onoga što slijedi, već na neki način ponavlja jedan od zakona termodinamike na kojima počivaju ničeanski Neprijatelji obećanja: „Što više knjiga čitamo, postaje nam jasnije da je istinska funkcija pisca da napiše remek-djelo i, samim tim, da nijedan drugi zadatak nije ni približno bitan.“

„Engleski jezik je poput neskučene rijeke na čijim obalama preži nekolicina strpljivih ribara, dok, uzvodno od njih, protok počinje da se odupire sve učestalijim otpadnim baržama koje u njega istovaruju blato iz Flit Strita i BBC-a. U stvari, engleski jezik se sveo na najmanju moguću mjeru da više nije isključeno da je sačiniti roman samo od pukih riječi postao zaludan posao. Pisac mora da se skoncentriše na svoj vokabular, no isto tako mora zavisiti i od reda, tajminga i razmaka između svojih riječi, u pokušaju da njihovom preraspodjelom dobije formu koja je naizgled bezoblična, a opet savršeno proporcionalna. Svojim izostavljanjima mora dozvoliti da sugerišu ono što jezik ne može da postigne. Riječi su danas nalik školjkama i užadima od algi, koje dijete sa plaže donese kući, i koje poslije sat vremena izgube svoj sjaj.“ Zar treba reći išta više?

Ono što Konoli nije mogao da pokaže u fikciji, očito je nadoknadio u parodiji, kritici, memoaru, recenziji i aforizmu (“Osobu koju bogovi žele da unište, prvo nazovu perspektivnom“). Čitao je na španskom i francuskom, i drugim jezicima. Bio bi zločin, mislio je, za života ne postati jedan Bodler, Flober, Poup, Kongriv ili Drajden, čak i Stern, gdje su inače ležali njegovi engleski estetski ukusi, ili ne postati starorimski elegičar poput Katula. Kao što ćete primijetiti, u Neprijateljima koje je objavio u 35. godini, u startu je sebe osudio na neuspjeh kao da je kanio da umre već u toku
sljedećeg mladog mjeseca. I pored svih njemu svojstvenih idiosinkrazija, Konolijev kulturni časopis Horizon (1939-50) jedini je držao puls na engleskoj kulturi za vrijeme Drugog svjetskog rata (ultimativnu knjigu o tom dijelu njegove karijere napisao je Majkl Šelden; Friends of Promise, ili Prijatelji obećanja).

Od 1951. godine, Konoli postaje glavni kritičar londonskog Sandej Tajmsa, gdje tavori do kraja spisateljske karijere. Kad je napokon sastavljen best of kompendij čovjekovog opusa (zajedno s njegovih nekoliko ne odveć valjanih satiričnih proznih komada) u vidu Odabranih eseja Sirila Konolija (1984; urednik: Piter Kvenel), dobili smo knjigu manjeg formata od jedva nekih 300 stranica, koje su vjerovatno više naškodile znamenitom kritičaru nego što su mu učinile uslugu. Slične sentimente imao je i Apdajk u rencenziji ove knjige, jer ta zbrda-zdola zbirka (bez datuma objavljenih tekstova i korisnog indeksa) neofitu ne bi usadila nikakvo strahopoštovanje prema Konoliju – i to je u tolikoj mjeri bilo očigledno da onda ne bi ni trebalo da čudi što se njegova esejistika sada više i ne može naći u slobodnoj prodaji, kao recimo Vilsonova, koji je, fakat je, sebe shvatao umnogome ozbiljnije.

„...Žalim što nisam bio bolji kritičar“ – lamentuje Konoli u predgovoru svoje prve zbirke kritika iz 1945, The Condemned Playground – „i što sam pretjerano jasno i necinično pisao, kako mi je uostalom i naloženo da radim, o toliko mnogo loših knjiga. Ono malo vrijednosti koje posjedujem mahom su praktične i materijalno jednostavne. Držim se teksta kao pijanica plota – ne obigravam oko njega poput orla nebu pod oblake, već nalik pognutom basetu koji lovi njuhom i s nosem u zemlji... Iskustvo u kritičaru razvija svojevrsni instinkt, koji ga, kao bakarne raklje kod bunardžije, navedu da se džilitne čim se primakne zakopanom blagu.“

Najduže razočarenje je trajalo do kraja života, naime, kad je otkrio koliko njegov iznimno cinični i kontroverzni prijatelj sa Oksforda, novokatolik Ivlin Vo, zapravo nije volio Nespokojni grob, a samim tim i njega. Naime, Vo je već negativno recenzirao tu knjigu u časopisu Tablet, no ovo je bilo sasvim drugačiji uvid u tu kritiku. U biografiji Konolijevog života Džeremija Luisa iz 1998, navodi se da je Vo dobio Grob od Nensi Mitford dok je tokom rata bio stacioniran u Raguzi, odnosno u Dubrovniku, gdje je doslovno priželjkivao da Njemci pregaze komuniste i to trubio na sva zvona i na iskrenu žalost britanske komande.

Poslije Voove smrti, 1966, Konoli je uspio da se dokopa njegovog primjerka i uvidi da je Vo cijelu knjigu nažvrljao crvenim mastilom, a ti utisci su bili daleko od standardnog kritičkog nipodaštavanja, koliko su vrvjeli od ad hominem bitisanja.

„Zbog čega bih uopšte trebao da marim za ovu knjigu?“ napisao je preko naslovnice. „Zato jer poznajem Sirila duže od 20 godina i s vremena na vrijeme pođem sa njim na večeru? Zato jer, sâm u Dubrovniku, nemam ništa drugo što bi mi zaokupilo pažnju? Prije će biti da je to zbog toga što je Siril tipični individuum iz moje generacije. I to, Bog mi pomogô, bukvalno… Posjeduje autentični nedostatak akademske učenosti moje generacije, čita Frojda dok jedva izlazi na kraj sa diplomom treće klase, ima autentičnu zadojenost prema lagodnom životarenju, liberalizmu i ćeretavoj nezavisnosti, grca od autentičnog romantičarskog snobizma, puca od autentičnog naduvanog beznađa, davi se u autentičnom talentu za kitnjastim izrazom. Eto njega usred rata, mumificiran lijenošću, u Blumzberiju, dok razmišlja o Džin na jugu Francuske, umjesto na Lis, sirene i na zvanične formulare za mobilizaciju. U njegovom srcu jasno stoji da su boljke od kojih pati teološkog porijekla, sa izučenim vokabularom besmislene filozofije koja ga zapravo sputava sve vrijeme…“

Palinurus je za Voa još bio bio „mali Irac iz ćorsokaka“ sa „akcentom Belfasta“ kome je na početku života „u sirotinjskoj četvrti, udijeljen zavjet zajedno sa tećom supe. Israo je supu, a sada iserava i zavjet.“

Na drugoj strani, kritiku Konolijevog romana iz 1936, The Rock Pool, Džordž Orvel počinje rečenicom da je „Konoli jedini recenzent u Engleskoj od kog me ne spopada muka“.

Posljednji, treći, dio Neprijatelja obećanja sastoji se od memoarskog dijela odrastanja na koledžu Iton zajedno sa dječacima među kojima se isticao Erik Bler, kako inače glasi pravo Orvelovo ime. Iako je na tom mjestu Konoli napisao da je Bler bio prirodni intelektualac, na drugom je o dragom prijatelju napisao da, „Orvel ne može da isekne nos, a da pritom ne krene da morališe o industriji pamučnih maramica.“

I pored toga što treći dio Neprijateljanaizgled nema veze s prva dva gdje se govori o tome kako napisati djelo koje će trajati i svoju duhovne kvalitete širiti najmanje deset i više godina, odnosno kakosu određeni pojedinci spriječeni da iskoriste svoj puni potencijal na čelu sa samim autorom tog teksta, u ovoj knjizi leži zakopana još jedna tema, a to je gubitak samokontrole i svojevrsno zakazivanje hrabrosti u aristokratskim slojevima Engleza iz Konolijeve generacije, a koji su iscrpili to htjenje poslije enormnog (kulturološkog, naravno) uspjeha viktorijske ere i tragedije Velikog rata. Ali već do početka 1930-ih, visoko-buržoaska kultura navodno je izgubila svoje nekadašnje mjesto i utonula u puku komercijalu.

Dabome, Konoli za sopstveni neuspjeh i mrcinu u koju se vremenom preobrazio krivi nikog drugog do sebe. Stoga ne bi trebalo da brine što je Konoli ovaj tom nazvao i „ideološkom autobiografijom“ u kojoj se zapravo nazire njegova simpatija prema socijalizmu kog se docnije odrekao, kao uostalom i većina Britanaca. U načelu se radi o vrlo realnoj knjizi savjeta za pisanje koji se mogu uzeti zdravo za gotovo na skoro svakom meridijanu naše planete, makar kad je u pitanju dobra proza.

Najefektnija poglavlja u Neprijateljima su ona u kojima analizira stanje engleske proze i njene prošle periode, a što se lako može uzeti za i te kako kompetentan primjer kako ne pisati, ili pisati, dobru fikciju: „Piščev rječnik treba da bude njegova valuta, međutim kako se radi o papirnom novcu to znači da mu vrijednost zavisi od rezervi u autorovom umu i srcu koje trebaju da je pokrivaju.“ A oni koji naročito umanjuju vrijednost ove valute su, prije svega, novinari (kao Konoli, recimo), političari i marketingstručnjaci. Otud i Konolijevo čuveno geslo da ne postoji „turobniji neprijatelj od kolica za bebu“. Odnosno, pravim piscima uopšte nisu potrebne ni ženidbe, ni djeca.

„Kvalitet piščevog uma može se usavršiti što više on osjeća ili razmišlja ili što, bez ikakvog napora, više čita i sve dok postaje svjesniji rasta ovog kvaliteta, on je utoliko sposobniji da eksperimentiše u tehnici ili da hrli ka njenoj simplifikaciji, te čak i da ode do očiglednog njenog napuštanja ne bi li izrazio jaku emociju ili neku duboku misao ordinarnim jezikom.“

Na mjestima gdje je Konoli pretjerano poetičan, lako je nazrijeti da o pisanju misli kao o duhovnoj zadudžbini koju ne smijemo da prestanemo da oplemenjujemo klasičnim vrijednostima, tako da ne postoji drugi način na koji se uopšte može pisati o tome.

„Postojalo je vrijeme... kad je bilo nemoguće pisati loše. Mišljenja sam da je ovo vrijeme bilo na kraju XVII i početku XVIII vijeka, kad su metafizički obrasci prve ere iščezavali, a dok je klasična tiranija druge tek počinjala da nastupa... Prirodno pisanje je bio određeni način dobrog pisanja.“

„Stil je odnos između forme i sadržaja. Gdje je sadržaj slabiji od forme, gdje se autor pretvara da gradi emociju koju uopšte ne osjeća, jezik će zvučati razmetljivo. Što je autor veća neznalica, njegov stil će postati izvještačeniji. Dok pisac koji misli da je pametniji od čitalaca piše prosto (najčešće, pretjerano prosto), a onaj što se plaši da su čitaoci pametniji od njega rado će se prihvatiti mistifikacije: pisac će naposljetku doseći valjan stil čim njegov jezik izvrši ono što se od njega i zahtijeva bez ikakve stidljivosti.“

Prema Konoliju, vrhunac stila je tzv. mandarinski, koji proizvodi najbogatiji i najkompleksniji izraz (u engleskom jeziku). To je dikcija Dona, Brauna, Adisona, Džonsona, de Kvinsija, Landora, Karlajla, Raskina i Gibona (s ovim se prvi ne bi saglasio Klajv Džejms koji je napisao i esej o traljavoj i pretjerano suvoparnoj Gibonovoj rečenici), nasuprot Banjanu, Drajdenu, Loku, Defou, Kouperu, Kobetu, Hazlitu, Sautiju i Njumenu. Mandarinski karakteriše duga rečenica protkana manjim zavisnim rečenicama, zatim korišćenjem konjunktiva i kondicionala, eksklamacijama, citatima, nagovještajima, metaforama, dugačkim slikama, latinskom terminologijom, suptilnostima i artističkim efektima. Posljednji korisnici mandarinskog stila, tvrdi Konoli, bili su Volter Pater i Henri Džejms.

„Vidjeli smo da postoje dva distinktivna stila koje je prigodno opisati kao realistične, ili kao ograničeni maternji izraz, stil tzv. odmetnika, novinara, ljudi navučenih na razboritost i zdrav razum i neromantičnih posmatrača ljudske sudbe – i na Mandarinski, artificijelni stil obrazovane populacije ili onih u nadležnosti kojima se pisanje pretvorilo u primarno zanimanje u slobodno vrijeme...

Novija proza, sa izuzetkom Konrada koji je pokušao da oživi nekadašnji veliki stil, počela je da podražava žurnalizam i kao rezultat toga dobili smo ‘modernizam’.“

V.S. Oden, jedan od najvećih pjesnika XX vijeka, napisao je Konoliju čim je pročitao Neprijatelje obećanja: „Za Neprijatelje mislim da je najbolja engleska knjiga kritike još od rata i daleko više od Vilsona ili Eliota ti zapravo pišeš o pisanju na jedini zamislivi način koji može biti interesantan svakom osim akademicima, kao o pravom zanimanju poput bankarstva ili jebanja sa svim propratnim egoizmom, monotonijom, ushićenjem i užasom. Uistinu ti svaka čast.“

Ma koliko na mahove dvoznačan i vrlo personalan, Konolijevi Neprijatelji ostaju jedna od rijetko zanimljivih udžbenika, ili traktata ako dozvolite, o dobrom pisanju.
2014

[Rachel Stevenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the first third of this book, which is about literature today (today being 1938), particularly modernism vs realism, or the vernacular vs mandarins (as Connolly puts it), citing Joyce, Elliot, Woolf on one side; Huxley, Isherwood, Orwell on the other. He takes no sides, not preferring one style, merely cogitating on which will last into posterity (answer: both). I also liked the final third, a memoir of a Georgian (the George being George V) boyhood and time spent at Eton*.

I would be very surprised if Julian Mitchell had not read the Eton section prior to writing Another Country: many details from the play and film seem to have been lifted wholesale from this memoir, including names, and the character of Judd is clearly influenced by George Orwell.

The second tranche, however, from which the title of the book takes its name, is pure whinging. Connolly spells out all the things that stop great male** artists achieving their full potential, from the terrible taste of the public to the meanness of publishing houses, to journalism, to the totalitarianism of literary left wing politics, to the problems of human relationships – the infamous pram in the hall, because those jolly annoying women will insist on getting pregnant! The alternative to the pram is being homosexual, which Connolly, to his credit, ignores the fact that it was illegal at the time and says that gay writers will never understand women or be able to write female characters. Which is ironic given that it’s nowadays considered that gay men write far more sympathetic, well-rounded female character than heterosexual male writers who are mostly concerned with their female characters’ breasts.

Connolly, supremely privileged (see above re: Eton) and known for his literary magazine, Horizon, as well as this book, seemed to live his life pretty well, and reading such whining is quite hard to stomach (even the foreword is more complaining about reviews of the first edition).

*“Were I to deduce any system from my feelings on leaving Eton, it might be called The Theory of Permanent Adolescence. It is the theory that the experiences undergone by boys at the great public schools, their glories and disappointments, are so intense as to dominate their lives and to arrest their development. From these it results that the greater part of the ruling class remains adolescent, school-minded, self-conscious, cowardly, sentimental."
Sounds very familiar.

**The problems of female artists are not mentioned.

[Michael David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enemies of Promise was in my Goodreads to-be-read pile for years. As with most books I read, it’s out of print, and until I looked it up again, it was also quite expensive. I was finally able to purchase an affordable copy, and since I’m seeking to be better at reading this year, finally decided that it was time to read it. I was full of hubris when I started this book: I told myself I was going to finish it in two days, because it was largely an autobiography. I was wrong, because while it was an autobiography, it was also a dense and exquisitely written critical work, surveying the quality and evolution of literature during the early years of the 20th century.

I think this work will definitely be unpopular with the reading public, particularly because it assesses the transition between the lyrical toward the modernist style of writing (between 1900-1930). I was elated because it affirmed that I had at least read a significant amount of literature: at the very least, I was familiar with Joyce, Faulkner, Woolf, Hemingway, and Huxley, and have read a few poems of poets like Keats and Auden.

Enemies of Promise tried to answer the question of what makes a work of literature endure – and later on also tackles Connolly’s failure to make his own masterpiece, despite his immense promise. Connolly divides the writing style of that time (which I think remains relevant to ours) to either the Mandarin or the vernacular.

The mandarin style is the style of intellectuals: words are weighted and measured and the best approximation of reality is attempted to be grasped despite the limitations of knowledge. Authors like Lytton Strachey, Aldous Huxley, and Virginia Woolf have been featured as proponents of the mandarin style. The worst defect of the Mandarin style is the ability to “spin cocoons of language out of nothing.” Proust, in particular, was mentioned by Connolly as the greatest mandarin.

I would agree that he was a great writer, but to me his works were such a waste of time. In his attempt to paint a picture of the consciousness through words, the emotional depth of his characters turned out to be caricatures. Connolly also mentioned that because Proust was homosexual, his understanding of the female psyche was disembodied: if one placed a wig on a man and dressed it up as a woman, it would still be a man nonetheless.

I’ve always tended toward the Mandarin style, which is why I appreciate Faulkner (also branded as a mandarin by Connolly). However, Connolly, himself a mandarin as a critic, beautifully describes the problem of the Mandarin style through Huxley: “Huxley suffers from the intellectual’s difficulty of communicating with the people around him except through the intellect. In consequence the only people he can write about at length are those with whom he can carry on an intellectual discussion.” (p. 65)

This was my difficulty when I attempted to write fiction. The problem with the mandarin style is that most regular people don’t communicate in well-constructed, well-reflected sentences. Many Filipinos, in particular, given the decline in educational quality of late, even have difficulty writing cohesive short paragraphs.

This was the reason that the vernacular style had risen – and has kept on rising. Intelligibility in fiction, with an even more fast-paced world, is more key to those who read nowadays. It is action that drives reading, and while there are still novels of ideas, they don’t end up making money for its writer: outside Rand’s Fountainhead, there aren’t really any recent novels of ideas that have been popular bestsellers. Critics say Musil’s Man Without Qualities is a masterpiece, but very few people I know have read it.

I myself don’t know a person who has completed Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. I gave up after The Guermantes Way, because it was intellectually masturbatory: frankly, I don’t give a damn about Proust’s unrealized emotions and by that time it was just enervating. It didn’t have a goal like Faulkner’s Sound and the Fury or Joyce’s technical ability in Ulysses, and I couldn’t care less afterward.

While the vernacular, on the other hand, was more active and realistic, Connolly warns against immersing oneself in this style as it flirts dangerously with journalism. As the vanguard of the vernacular, Hemingway was excellent, but his style was debased with more and more copycats, eventually reducing the quality of his texts vicariously. Connolly’s prediction had been realized, however, with the nature of literature being less and less burdening on the mind. Of recent times, the young adult genre had entrenched itself and is read by all age groups: the writing is often fluid and pragmatic, and the stories are often exciting, with its dialogues being simple and direct.

I think Connolly was arguing that for works to last long, it should be concisely written using the mandarin style. I would agree, especially because Nabokov is still being read nowadays. However, I think the easier path is to write a good young adult fantasy, have it advertised well, and then create merchandise from it.

For what it’s worth, the Harry Potter series has lasted more than 10 years, and will likely last even longer. The vernacular has triumphed because technology has forced us to be more economical with our time on reading. It was something that Connolly could not have predicted, but it doesn’t make Enemies of Promise any less beautiful.

The final part of the book transitions to Connolly’s perspicuous self-analysis and self-abasement: despite one being regarded as full of promise, he retells his past to the reader and reveals the widespread bullying towards him and the unfair treatment as someone who wasn’t an alpha. In England, they would call it fagging. Despite being good at scholarship and the classics, he also reflects that he often traversed in the interstices of the middle and upper class, and was also inexpert when it came toward relationships. This section was also a social critique of the boarding school, where regulations were irregular at best and yet no one was still able to curb homosexual acts. I think that this is a lesser section when compared to his incisive analyses of literature that remains relevant, but I loved his conclusion that “experiences undergone by boys at the great public schools are so intense as to dominate their lives and to arrest their development. From these it results that the greater part of the ruling class remains adolescent, school-minded, self-conscious, cowardly, and in the last analysis, homosexual.”

I mean, this clearly applies to the Philippines, but I digress. Connolly might have failed in creating his literary masterpiece, but this critical bildungsroman of his is no less excellent.

[Eric Byrd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just finished Part I, the witty survey of English literary trends, feuds and factions from 1890 until 1938. The copy I have is a library one, so I may not proceed until I can buy my own markable copy. Connolly has such an aphoristic style--at times I'm conscious of reading through filler before the zinger--that I need to read him with pen in hand.

[James Dempsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am much in awe of Connolly’s prose. He is cool and comfortable with the squat pen, and plies the art of storytelling with ease and aplomb. Boyhood recollection is never easy, but having been rigidly drilled and instructed and arranged with a love for reading and writing, translation and transcription, it seems only natural then to have written a reflective in your mid thirties, so traumatic was this youth. Early equipped with the ability to diagnose the mood of an unseen composition, but not the trickeries of your own emotions and mind. This mode of education which Connolly received renders boys wayward: professionally, only scholarship or authorship can await you. Sensitive and literary minds seldom attach themselves to the thrusting and enterprising world of business and commerce. They refuse this world just as much as it refuses them, but then this could be a gross generalisation, what could I know?Temperamentally I think it true. There is little doubt in my own mind however that I will return to this book avidly. Pithy and funny and peppered with a healthy agreeableness of pessimism. Il faut vivre.

[Geoffrey Dow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cyril Connolly is one of those once well-known names that was one I'd had heard of, here and there, probably many times over the years, but it was only on the repeated recommendations by Samuel R. Delany on Facebook, when talking about his own book on writing (About Writing), and how that book would have been both different and better had he encountered Connolly's sooner, that made me seek out Enemies of Promise.

Am I glad I did?

I guess I am, since I rated it four stars. Connolly is erudite, pulls no punches when it comes to writers he thinks little of, and fulsome in his praise. It was a pleasure to read, but whether it was of much use to me as a writer (of sorts), I'm not so sure. Which is why my initial star-ranking was only three.

To make matters worse, I finished it some months ago (the date listed is a best guess and nothing more) and I have been more than a little busy in the meantime. Somehow, I feel a re-read calling to me, if ever I find the time ...

//exeunt, stream-of-consciousness review

[Phoebe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is in three parts: (a) classifications of literary style; (b) a view of the personal limitations of Connolly himself from writing a great work of literature; (c) autobiographical material.

I was disappointed by how indulgent the latter two sections are. Connolly seems to attribute all of the blame to his formative experiences in school, the Eton years, in particular. It suggests some unwillingness or inability for rigorous honesty and self-examination, to focus on these and other external circumstances beyond his control.

The first section might have been bolder at the time, but now seems like a very simplistic characterisation from 'Mandarin' (a term Connolly coins to typify writers with an emphasis on style, writing to an assumed audience of men with a classical education and lots of time on their hands), to the journalistic, modernist, and counter-reactions to these trends. I am sure other critics have since done this better with deeper research.

[Cyrille Honoré · Rating 1 out of 5]

Il y a des mots qui forment des phrases donc c'est un livre. Mais c'est tantôt une compilation de critiques, tantôt un essai, tantôt une autobiographie. C'est un peu tout probablement mais rien d'intéressant in fine. Ce qui est constant par contre à travers les pages, c'est la prétention de l'auteur et l'ennui incommensurable que la lecture de cet objet procure. Et puis c'est tout à la fois bien lourd et bien vide. Connolly n'est pas un écrivain en fait à la base, c'est un critique. C'est visible.

[Mark Rance · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I have always disliked myself at any given moment; the total of such moments is my life.”

The opening line of chapter 18 and the section titled A Georgian Boyhood. And before that are two insightful sections devoted to unpacking the birth and flowering of modern English literature from about 1880-1930.

I know I am going to reread this book and use it as a touchstone reference and guide to other works. Enemies of Promise is also available, broken up, in the two volumes of collected writings edited by his son.

[Riley Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of this book is the best piece of English criticism ever written. It's better than Forster's 'Aspects of the Novel' / Wood's 'How Fiction Works' / etc, etc.

The second half of the book is slow. It's Connolly's autobiography (up the age of eighteen).

There's an Englishman of a certain generation that will unfailingly document every detail of his schooling (Latin teachers, Schoolmasters, beatings, etc)... and I would rather be drugged and wake up with a missing kidney than endure one more sentence about tea-room politics / who is the best at cricket.

[Benny Morduchowitz]

Simultaneously the best and the worst of the three Connolly books I've read. I admire the clarity of the literary criticism in the first half, was amused by many of his conditions and standards, and learned more than felt necessary about the school politics of his youth.

The level of detail he gives in the memoir section could be painfully tedious, but it's interesting, and also upsetting, to see how he thinks his youth defined his entire being. The Rock Pool and Palinurus are both more unified, but paint less of an asymmetrical portrait of the self in the way he does here.

[Joan Cameron-Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

first half most interesting

[Ivar Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Literary criticism from 1938 totally readable in 2020. Funny and tragic, probably much like the man himself.

[Molebatsi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A heavy but good book. I picked it tohelp through my writing projects. Not a bad pick.

[Augusta · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book written by a very well-known literary critic and journalist, Cyril Connolly. It sets out to address the issue of why he never became the successful author of fiction that he aspired to and that others felt he should have become.

It is set in 3 parts, the first part is literary criticism. He talks in great detail about mandarin and realistic writing, analyses different writers and poets such as Hemingway, Maugham, Joyce, and a few others I haven’t heard of and talks a little about what literature and poetry will last more than 10 years and what writing will be lost in the passage of time, i.e. what components make writing last the distance. I think the idea of many successful authors who write in a way that compliments the times is a good one, the writing that appealed before the world wars will be different than writing that appeals after, because the world is a different place, the ‘tone’ of society has changed.

Part 2 is quite short and refers directly to the title of the book, documenting different obstructions to a promising writer, e.g. politics, journalism, money or lack of etc.

The third part is autobiographical, and documents his schooling, prep and in more in-depth, his Eton days. I was looking forward to this part but I found it the least interesting, and it is this part that made my review slump to 2 stars. Connolly is obviously incredibly nostalgic about his Eton days, and I don’t feel I grasped many insights into why he didn’t publish a successful novel from hearing about all of his friendships and the boys he loved, in great detail. I think the problem here is that all of his friends proceeded to be venerable figures in the literary world of that time, but I haven’t heard of any of them aside from Orwell, so was vastly uninterested in who Cyril’s favourite was the month.

The only insight I did get from this part was when he was discussing that Eton created a kind of false world for its pupils, an insulated world involved in its classical history and literature and its medals and its hierarchy, where many of the students flourished, but that it doesn’t prepare a boy for the real world and a boy’s Eton’s days can end up being his best days. However, I still wasn’t interested in a detailed account and reminisce of his Eton days, and there was very little discussion about how this changed him in any meaningful way. I think perhaps a lot of my complaints here can be attributed to the dating of this book but considering in the first part, Connolly was discussing successful writing that DOESN’T date, you’d think he could have avoided it himself. I can tell from parts of his writing and what I’ve read about him that he was an incredibly interesting man and writer but I just didn’t see enough of it in this book.

[Jeffrey Greggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Connolly is a true pleasure to read. Pay no attention to his complaints—those Eton-types were chaps who could turn a phrase or two. Book I provides a detailed round-up of early 20th C prose as seen through the dialectic of mandarin and vernacular style. Book II is a marvel. It's not on the curriculum of any MFA programs that I am aware of (for the obv. reasons), but it could easily be the sole text in a course listed as "Literary Ambition & Its Discontents." Gotta love Book III too; Connolly puts his lesson plan into use to see if he measures up. (Critic, write thyself.) The autobiographical sketch of boyhood in England's finest schools is reminiscent of—and provides a nice counterpoint to—Orwell's on the same topic.

[Simon Akam]

A secondhand edition of this book, first published in 1938, has sat on my shelves since I finished university - I finally got around to reading it following a deadline at the end of last year. The delay was probably necessary, but approached now I did indeed find - as many have before me - that Connolly's book said more about the practise of being a writer, and the pitfalls that surround it, than any other single volume. Highly recommended.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

A time capsule of sorts, assessing the novelists of early-to-mid 20th-century Britain, what it takes to write a novel (according to Connolly, who admittedly never did), and ending with a short memoir of Connolly's schooldays and rise to prominence as a critic. Perhaps nothing more than a curiosity these days, but I enjoy the immersion in a bygone literary world.

[Elizabeth Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

One half literary criticism, one half clear-eyed and brutal analysis of his days at Eton. Addictive, if maybe a little too aphoristic. You start to feel foolish when you find yourself underlining something every page...

[Lewis Manalo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The essay section on writing is required for readers as well as writers, but at this point the coming-of-age memoir doesn't offer much you haven't already read - though it does say what George Orwell was like in high school.

[Denis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, the book is a relic of the past but the quotes and vignettes it contains (of friendships, characters, feelings, styles) are eternal. It includes an autobiography, but it's more valuable as the biography of a generation.