DOUBTFIRE

by Robert Nye

"It is too much, we say: too much poetry, too much impossible prose, too much Beckett; Mr. Nye, as the saying goes, is too much. But after that first arrest Doubtfire will be discovered to generate its own conventions, its own forms of solace, and we remember that any fiction is a matter of the more than merely life- size, is a monstrous measurement, the calipers taking hold of the object from the space, the dimensions around it. If we are patient with ourselves and allow this author his fine impatience, we shall see not with but through his eyes, as Blake said you should. And as for being too much—did not Blake also say that the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom?"
-- Richard Howard

Like many contemporary works of fiction, Doubtfire is not a novel in the traditional sense. It does not attempt to tell a story, does not develop a plot, but instead concentrates on a moment in the agonizing strangeness of living itself— which is doubt-ridden, grief-stricken, happy, hopeful, disappointing, absurd, comic, and chaotic. The main character is an adolescent—for essentially this is a book about growing up—named William Retz, who passes from ignorance and doubt to a discovery of his self and his world. There is a rich evocation in the book of everyday life in an English seaside town. For anyone who writes or attempts to write, the passages about creating poetry will hold a special and surprising element of recognition. This first novel by Robert Nye is quite clearly the work of an original literary artist who uses language with subtlety, versatility, and poetic force.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Robert Nye was an English writer, playwright and poet.

Nye started writing stories for children to entertain his three young sons. Nye published his first adult novel, Doubtfire, in 1967.

Nye's next publication after Doubtfire was a return to children's literature, a freewheeling version of Beowulf which has remained in print in many editions since 1968. In 1970, he published another children's book, Wishing Gold, and received the James Kennaway Memorial Award for his collection of short stories, Tales I Told My Mother (1969).

During the early 1970s Nye wrote several plays for BBC radio including “A Bloody Stupit Hole” (1970), “Reynolds, Reynolds” (1971), and a version of Penthesilea by Heinrich von Kleist (1971). He was also commissioned by Covent Garden to write an unpublished libretto for Harrison Birtwistle's opera, Kronia (1970). Nye held the position of writer in residence at the University of Edinburgh, 1976-1977, during which time he received the Guardian fiction prize, followed by the 1976 Hawthornden Prize for his novel Falstaff.

He continued to write poetry, publishing Darker Ends (1969) and Divisions on a Ground (1976), and to prepare editions of other poets with whose work he felt an affinity: Sir Walter Ralegh, William Barnes, and Laura Riding. His own Collected Poems appeared in 1995. His selected poems, entitled The Rain and The Glass, published in 2005, won the Cholmondeley Award. From 1977 he lived in County Cork, Ireland. Although his novels have won prizes and been translated into many languages, it is as a poet that he would probably have preferred to be remembered. The critic Gabriel Josipovici described him as "one of the most interesting poets writing today, with a voice unlike that of any of his contemporaries."

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

Multifaceted author who published fifteen volumes of poetry, nine childrens’ books, two story collections, and nine novels, most of which poach famous literary characters and perform headspinning riffs on personnel like Falstaff, Byron, Shakespeare, and Merlin. This first novel, Calder-pubbed in 1967, is something of a throat-clearing exercise in virtuoso showmanship, showcasing Nye’s sizzling skill for waves of stylish and compelling prose and a willingness to explore a series of new forms common to the postmodernistas of the period. A champion of British avant-garde writers such as Penelope Shuttle and B.S. Johnson, included in Giles Gordon’s seminal Beyond the Words: Eleven Writers in Search of a New Fiction anthology, Nye was a marginal figure in that movement, more a reviewer and champion than a pivotal player. This novel is a largely incoherent series of prose explorations, with references to Joan of Arc’s child-murdering spouse Gilles de Rais, a figure later reimagined in the 1990 novel The Life and Death of My Lord Gilles de Rais. Doubtfire is a throwback to a period when new writers finding their voices as novelists were allowed to publish their workings, as opposed to now, when we are expected to keep umpteen manuscripts on a USB until a publisher sees something profitable.

[Steve · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've read and enjoyed all of Nye's other novels. I found this one incomprehensible, meandering gibberish. Zero stars ?