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Levine
Felix Levine was a sailor, and the secret of the sailor's life is that he is alive in the past and the future. For him the present is only something to be endured. If he tries to take root away from the sea he is doomed to failure, and those who attempt to hold him must suffer with him. Levine was washed up on the shores of England after his ship had gone down. As a refugee without papers of identification, he found himself everywhere an object of suspicion, finally sent to a camp in a northern town where he lived in a hut. Grace Helling had also come to this town as a refugee, after her parents had both been killed in a London air raid. It was a year when time had stopped and the world was breaking up. Both were lonely; the hour threw them together. But Levine was still a sailor; the sea began to ache in his bones.
There is a sense of power in every page of Levine which ensures for it a high place in the canon of Hanley's works. The narrative is well adapted to the dramatic requirements of the theme and heightens the poignancy and force of the novel because, as we follow the paths which bring Grace and Levine together, we already know that when they meet it will be at a point of no return.
There is a sense of power in every page of Levine which ensures for it a high place in the canon of Hanley's works. The narrative is well adapted to the dramatic requirements of the theme and heightens the poignancy and force of the novel because, as we follow the paths which bring Grace and Levine together, we already know that when they meet it will be at a point of no return.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1956
4 people want to read
About the author
James Hanley
77 books13 followersBorn in Kirkdale, Liverpool, in 1897 (not Dublin, nor 1901 as he generally implied) to a working-class family, Hanley probably left school in 1911 and worked as a clerk, before going to sea in 1915 at the age of 17 (not 13 as he again implied). Thus life at sea was a formative influence and much of his early writing is about seamen.
Then, in April 1917, Hanley jumped ship in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, and shortly thereafter joined the Canadian Army in Fredericton, NB. Hanley fought in France in the summer of 1918, but was invalided out shortly thereafter. He then went to Toronto, Canada, for two months, in the winter of 1919, to be demobbed, before returning to Liverpool on 28 March 1919. He may have taken one final voyage before working as a railway porter in Bootle. In addition to working as a railway porter, he devoted himself "to a prodiguous range of autodidactic, high cultural activities – learning the piano ...attending ... concerts ... reading voraciously and, above all, writing." It is also probable that he later worked at a number of other jobs, while writing fiction in his spare time. However, it was not until 1929 that his novel Drift was accepted, and this was published in March, 1930.
Then, in April 1917, Hanley jumped ship in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, and shortly thereafter joined the Canadian Army in Fredericton, NB. Hanley fought in France in the summer of 1918, but was invalided out shortly thereafter. He then went to Toronto, Canada, for two months, in the winter of 1919, to be demobbed, before returning to Liverpool on 28 March 1919. He may have taken one final voyage before working as a railway porter in Bootle. In addition to working as a railway porter, he devoted himself "to a prodiguous range of autodidactic, high cultural activities – learning the piano ...attending ... concerts ... reading voraciously and, above all, writing." It is also probable that he later worked at a number of other jobs, while writing fiction in his spare time. However, it was not until 1929 that his novel Drift was accepted, and this was published in March, 1930.
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