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Look Long Upon a Monkey
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1956
3 people want to read
About the author
James Curtis
7 books7 followersBritish author best known for his novels They Drive By Night and There Ain't No Justice, both of which were made into feature films.
James Curtis was born Geoffrey Basil Maiden, in Sturry, Kent. Curtis' parents were hoteliers in India as well as later in England, where Curtis attended The King's School, Canterbury. In 1934, he appeared in two films, Manhattan Melodrama and Fugitive Lady, in uncredited roles. He soon adopted the pseudonym of James Curtis and began a career as an author.
Curtis used his plots to highlight the unfairness of society and dearth of opportunity that often led people to break the law in straitened times. He was forced to stop writing at the outbreak of World War II during which he went on to tour France and Burma, and rose to the rank of Major. After the war, his marriage failed and his literary momentum never recovered, though he published one final novel in the 1950s.
In 2007, London Books republished his 1936 novel, The Gilt Kid and in 2008 They Drive By Night, as part of their London Classics series.
James Curtis was born Geoffrey Basil Maiden, in Sturry, Kent. Curtis' parents were hoteliers in India as well as later in England, where Curtis attended The King's School, Canterbury. In 1934, he appeared in two films, Manhattan Melodrama and Fugitive Lady, in uncredited roles. He soon adopted the pseudonym of James Curtis and began a career as an author.
Curtis used his plots to highlight the unfairness of society and dearth of opportunity that often led people to break the law in straitened times. He was forced to stop writing at the outbreak of World War II during which he went on to tour France and Burma, and rose to the rank of Major. After the war, his marriage failed and his literary momentum never recovered, though he published one final novel in the 1950s.
In 2007, London Books republished his 1936 novel, The Gilt Kid and in 2008 They Drive By Night, as part of their London Classics series.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 28, 2020
“I could never look long upon a monkey, without very mortifying reflections” – William Congreve, 1695
This is James Curtis’s final novel, written almost twenty years after his earlier work in the 1930s. A lot had happened to him during this time – the war, the breakdown of his marriage, a lifestyle of drinking and gambling – and it is claimed he had lost his motivation to write. His last novel was possibly more ambitious than his prewar fiction – as witness the cumbersome literary title – but unhappily it is all a bit of a mess.
The novel is set in The Wolds, somewhere deep in the countryside, overlooked by a menacing, mist-shrouded prison. There is talk of escaped convicts and pat, they arrive. The main voice in the book seems to experience a revelation in the changed atmosphere this creates and there is a vague message threading through the novel about not accepting roles for oneself and not prejudging others, resulting in at least some of the characters emerging as possibly better and wiser. Even “the prisoners themselves learn some unexpected lessons from their adventures” according to a blurb that must surely have been written by Enid Blyton.
The problem is that Curtis was the quintessential lowlife London writer, so setting the novel in the countryside was never going to be a great idea. His middle classes say “jolly” and “ghastly” a lot, speak mainly in exclamation marks, and seem to have been lifted from the pages of an old boy’s own paper . “Hurry up, man, blast your soul!” is not a phrase redolent of the 1950s. One of the convicts is supposed to be a Teddy Boy, but the label is the only postwar thing about him...the police switch unpredictably from Mummerset to Sweeney ... there is an IRA man who is painfully Irish...the female characters are embarrassing...and it’s all rather sad to read, especially for a writer whose earlier works are so perfectly positioned in their time and place.
Look Long Upon a Monkey has never been reprinted and frankly, for the author’s sake, it is probably best left that way.
This is James Curtis’s final novel, written almost twenty years after his earlier work in the 1930s. A lot had happened to him during this time – the war, the breakdown of his marriage, a lifestyle of drinking and gambling – and it is claimed he had lost his motivation to write. His last novel was possibly more ambitious than his prewar fiction – as witness the cumbersome literary title – but unhappily it is all a bit of a mess.
The novel is set in The Wolds, somewhere deep in the countryside, overlooked by a menacing, mist-shrouded prison. There is talk of escaped convicts and pat, they arrive. The main voice in the book seems to experience a revelation in the changed atmosphere this creates and there is a vague message threading through the novel about not accepting roles for oneself and not prejudging others, resulting in at least some of the characters emerging as possibly better and wiser. Even “the prisoners themselves learn some unexpected lessons from their adventures” according to a blurb that must surely have been written by Enid Blyton.
The problem is that Curtis was the quintessential lowlife London writer, so setting the novel in the countryside was never going to be a great idea. His middle classes say “jolly” and “ghastly” a lot, speak mainly in exclamation marks, and seem to have been lifted from the pages of an old boy’s own paper . “Hurry up, man, blast your soul!” is not a phrase redolent of the 1950s. One of the convicts is supposed to be a Teddy Boy, but the label is the only postwar thing about him...the police switch unpredictably from Mummerset to Sweeney ... there is an IRA man who is painfully Irish...the female characters are embarrassing...and it’s all rather sad to read, especially for a writer whose earlier works are so perfectly positioned in their time and place.
Look Long Upon a Monkey has never been reprinted and frankly, for the author’s sake, it is probably best left that way.
Displaying 1 of 1 review