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The Blind Bow-Boy
From the first-edition dust jacket (1923):
In full agreement with George Barrow's remark that "nobody would call a book a novel if he could call it anything else," Mr. Van Vechten prefers to describe this work, the action of which passes in New York, 1922, and the hero of which is the god Eros, as "a cartoon for a stained-glass window." He begs his readers to imagine the attitudes of his characters, now sketched rudely in black and white, as they will appear when clothed in their final brilliant and luminous colors. The book is not "romantic" or "realistic" or "life" or "art." Assuredly it is not "fantasy" or "satire." The author has sworn before a notary public that his only purpose in creating THE BLIND BOW-BOY was to amuse. Readers, therefore, are especially warned against the danger of comparing this work with other books, written, apparently, in a somewhat different form, for it should be obvious that no purpose, beyond that just noted, actuated its construction, and no ideas are concealed beneath its surface.
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The novel begins: "Harold Prewett sat in the broad, black-walnut seat of an ambiguous piece of furniture which branched above, in spreading antlers, into a rack for coats and hats and which below, at either side, provided means for the disposition of canes and umbrellas. The mere presence of these heavy, sullen antlers was sufficiently dispiriting to increase the gloomy atmosphere which environed the young man. The room in which he sat waiting was a hallway."
In full agreement with George Barrow's remark that "nobody would call a book a novel if he could call it anything else," Mr. Van Vechten prefers to describe this work, the action of which passes in New York, 1922, and the hero of which is the god Eros, as "a cartoon for a stained-glass window." He begs his readers to imagine the attitudes of his characters, now sketched rudely in black and white, as they will appear when clothed in their final brilliant and luminous colors. The book is not "romantic" or "realistic" or "life" or "art." Assuredly it is not "fantasy" or "satire." The author has sworn before a notary public that his only purpose in creating THE BLIND BOW-BOY was to amuse. Readers, therefore, are especially warned against the danger of comparing this work with other books, written, apparently, in a somewhat different form, for it should be obvious that no purpose, beyond that just noted, actuated its construction, and no ideas are concealed beneath its surface.
-------------
The novel begins: "Harold Prewett sat in the broad, black-walnut seat of an ambiguous piece of furniture which branched above, in spreading antlers, into a rack for coats and hats and which below, at either side, provided means for the disposition of canes and umbrellas. The mere presence of these heavy, sullen antlers was sufficiently dispiriting to increase the gloomy atmosphere which environed the young man. The room in which he sat waiting was a hallway."
182 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1923
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65 people want to read
About the author
Carl van Vechten
142 books29 followersCarl van Vechten (B.A., University of Chicago, 1903) was a photographer, music-dance critic, novelist, and patron of the Harlem Renaissance who served as literary executor for Gertrude Stein.
Van Vechten was among the most influential literary figures of the 1910s and 1920s. He began his career in journalism as a reporter, then in 1906 joined The New York Times as assistant music critic and later worked as its Paris correspondent. His early reviews are collected in Interpreters and Interpretations (1917 and 1920) and Excavations: A Book of Advocacies (1926). His first novel, Peter Whiffle (1922), a first-person account of the salon and bohemian culture of New York and Paris and clearly drawn from Van Vechten's own experiences, and was immensely popular. His most controversial work of fiction is Nigger Heaven (1926), notable for its depiction of black life in Harlem in the 1920s and its sympathetic treatment of the newly emerging black culture.
In the 1930s, Van Vechten turned from fiction to photography. His photographs are in collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and elsewhere. An important literary patron, he established the James Weldon Johnson Collection of Negro Arts and Letters at Yale.
Van Vechten was among the most influential literary figures of the 1910s and 1920s. He began his career in journalism as a reporter, then in 1906 joined The New York Times as assistant music critic and later worked as its Paris correspondent. His early reviews are collected in Interpreters and Interpretations (1917 and 1920) and Excavations: A Book of Advocacies (1926). His first novel, Peter Whiffle (1922), a first-person account of the salon and bohemian culture of New York and Paris and clearly drawn from Van Vechten's own experiences, and was immensely popular. His most controversial work of fiction is Nigger Heaven (1926), notable for its depiction of black life in Harlem in the 1920s and its sympathetic treatment of the newly emerging black culture.
In the 1930s, Van Vechten turned from fiction to photography. His photographs are in collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and elsewhere. An important literary patron, he established the James Weldon Johnson Collection of Negro Arts and Letters at Yale.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 18, 2019
"You have invented your own brightness," said Gertrude Stein to CVV after reading his wickedly amusing novel at, she confessed, "the site of the Assumption of the Virgin," wherever that may be.
A tidy best-seller of 1923, the story follows a young man's learning all about the Seven Lively Arts & Seven Deadly Sins. Sinclair Lewis called it "impertinent, subversive," and CVVs own Dad found it "depraved." (No wonder CVV left home as soon as he could). The packed funhouse includes socialite Campaspe Lorillard & husband Cupid; a saucy snake charmer from Coney Island; a futuristic music man named Bunny Hugg; and a monocled British aristo, the Duke of Middlebottom, who wears a sailor outfit and carries an umbrella.
Campaspe, a fond impression of CVVs close pal Mabel Dodge Luhan, who's also in CVVs Firecrackers and Peter Whiffle, conveys the feelings of the author in this modern dip into the Satyricon. Driving in her Rolls-Royce she tells a youth who doesn't know who or what he is, "Conform externally with the world's demands and you will get anything you desire in life." Using the framework of farce, CVV makes a serious point : it takes bravery to defy the tyranny of convention. You'll never be bored if surrounded by those who are "individual enough to comport themselves with some eccentricity, not to say perversity." Campaspe prizes people with imagination, like the man, as reported in the NYT, who had devoted years to the engraving of the Lord's Prayer on the head of a pin. Then he went blind and later insane. What does it mean? Therein lies the charm. It does not mean anything.
A tidy best-seller of 1923, the story follows a young man's learning all about the Seven Lively Arts & Seven Deadly Sins. Sinclair Lewis called it "impertinent, subversive," and CVVs own Dad found it "depraved." (No wonder CVV left home as soon as he could). The packed funhouse includes socialite Campaspe Lorillard & husband Cupid; a saucy snake charmer from Coney Island; a futuristic music man named Bunny Hugg; and a monocled British aristo, the Duke of Middlebottom, who wears a sailor outfit and carries an umbrella.
Campaspe, a fond impression of CVVs close pal Mabel Dodge Luhan, who's also in CVVs Firecrackers and Peter Whiffle, conveys the feelings of the author in this modern dip into the Satyricon. Driving in her Rolls-Royce she tells a youth who doesn't know who or what he is, "Conform externally with the world's demands and you will get anything you desire in life." Using the framework of farce, CVV makes a serious point : it takes bravery to defy the tyranny of convention. You'll never be bored if surrounded by those who are "individual enough to comport themselves with some eccentricity, not to say perversity." Campaspe prizes people with imagination, like the man, as reported in the NYT, who had devoted years to the engraving of the Lord's Prayer on the head of a pin. Then he went blind and later insane. What does it mean? Therein lies the charm. It does not mean anything.
March 26, 2020
If some one was asked to name an American decadent novel they might answer ‘The Great Gatsby’ or perhaps (if they had deeper decadent leanings) ‘Painted Veils’ by James Huneker. Seemingly off most folks radar (o.k., I confess, mine) is this one by Van Vechten, who I really only knew of as a photographer and for his part in the ‘Harlem Renaissance’, championing the works of African Americans such as Langston Hughes and Paul Robeson.
This is his second novel and is a minor decadent classic in which the sheltered young man Harold Prewett, is given unlimited funds by his father to learn about life and himself. His father also finds him a mentor in Paul Moody who was employed by him specifically because he was “of good character but no model sense” and have been involved in a public scandal. In other words a Bohemian.
And thus Harold finds himself involved with a motley crew of oddballs such as Campaspe Lorillard whos philosophy, an ex-snake charmer (and soon to be man charmer) Zimbule, the modernist composer Bunny Hugg; and the exceedingly camp Duke of Middlebottom. He has no idea what to make of them but the decadent Lorillard helps guide his way to deciding if he is remain with them and their silly but fun activities (such as a preposterous modernist stage play) or leave them and marry the ‘good’ girl (as opposed to the ‘bad’ one).
As an art and music critic, Van Vechten knows his stuff and the book looks back to Huysmans ‘A Rebours’ (Huysmans is referenced and a tortoise has a part to play) but updated somewhat..."There were other pictures, bright amazing dancers by Schnackenberg, portraits of Maria Hagen, Peter Pathe, Anne Ehmans, and Lo Hesse, more remote conceits in black and white by Alastair*...A gate-legged table in the corner served as an uneasy resting place for a bronze torso by Dujam Penic, the Serbian sculptor, a pair of yellow-green glass candlesticks in the shape of inverted dolphins, De Berg van Licht by Louis Couperus, boxes of cravats from Charvet, consignments of pleasant odours from Bichara, and a hand-illuminated quotation from Goethe: 'Hatte Gott mich anders gewollt, Er hatte mich anders gebaut'; neatly framed in gold."
Some of these (and literary reference such as Luigi Pirandello, Dopo Kunikida, Ab Gwilym, Francis Carco, Del Valle Inclan and Andre Salmon) are new to me and would seem, in the context to be worth checking out.
The novel is thus both a homage and a parody of all the decant tropes we've me to expect from the likes of Wilde, Jean Lorrain, d'Adelswärd-Fersen: drug references (tick), nudity (tick), opulent clothes/perfumes/room descriptions (tick), campness (tick), quotes in French (tick), far eastern houseboys (tick). Tick, tick, tick. It’s all there. As far as as the novel goes, and to be honest it never really escapes the authors Ive just cited its really great fun, well paced and easy on the eye reading with the positive message that you mustn’t be afraid to go against the grain if that is what your nature is. It is not as clever (or funny) as ‘Pollen’ by Beresford Egan (the best ‘deco-decadent’ novel I know of, but then I would say that wouldn’t I?) but gives it a good run for the money and is far better than the (over-rated) 'Painted Veils'. I just dont know how it had slipped under my radar until now.
And…its free! Yes FREE! Download it from the Internet archive here:
https://archive.org/details/blindbowb...
However, for those who like paper there is a new p/b edition with an introductory essay and footnotes (and hopefully that pesky French translated) by decadent scholar Kirsten MacLeod.
http://www.mhra.org.uk/publications/B...
Either way, no decadent library should be without it.
* Alastair actually did a few illustrations for this book which appear in his book 'Fifty Drawings by Alastair' (1925). Van Vechten introduces it and so the circle is made...
PS: Reviewer advisory for the sensitive: there is some use of the ’N’-word and (even) the ‘J’-word.
This is his second novel and is a minor decadent classic in which the sheltered young man Harold Prewett, is given unlimited funds by his father to learn about life and himself. His father also finds him a mentor in Paul Moody who was employed by him specifically because he was “of good character but no model sense” and have been involved in a public scandal. In other words a Bohemian.
And thus Harold finds himself involved with a motley crew of oddballs such as Campaspe Lorillard whos philosophy, an ex-snake charmer (and soon to be man charmer) Zimbule, the modernist composer Bunny Hugg; and the exceedingly camp Duke of Middlebottom. He has no idea what to make of them but the decadent Lorillard helps guide his way to deciding if he is remain with them and their silly but fun activities (such as a preposterous modernist stage play) or leave them and marry the ‘good’ girl (as opposed to the ‘bad’ one).
As an art and music critic, Van Vechten knows his stuff and the book looks back to Huysmans ‘A Rebours’ (Huysmans is referenced and a tortoise has a part to play) but updated somewhat..."There were other pictures, bright amazing dancers by Schnackenberg, portraits of Maria Hagen, Peter Pathe, Anne Ehmans, and Lo Hesse, more remote conceits in black and white by Alastair*...A gate-legged table in the corner served as an uneasy resting place for a bronze torso by Dujam Penic, the Serbian sculptor, a pair of yellow-green glass candlesticks in the shape of inverted dolphins, De Berg van Licht by Louis Couperus, boxes of cravats from Charvet, consignments of pleasant odours from Bichara, and a hand-illuminated quotation from Goethe: 'Hatte Gott mich anders gewollt, Er hatte mich anders gebaut'; neatly framed in gold."
Some of these (and literary reference such as Luigi Pirandello, Dopo Kunikida, Ab Gwilym, Francis Carco, Del Valle Inclan and Andre Salmon) are new to me and would seem, in the context to be worth checking out.
The novel is thus both a homage and a parody of all the decant tropes we've me to expect from the likes of Wilde, Jean Lorrain, d'Adelswärd-Fersen: drug references (tick), nudity (tick), opulent clothes/perfumes/room descriptions (tick), campness (tick), quotes in French (tick), far eastern houseboys (tick). Tick, tick, tick. It’s all there. As far as as the novel goes, and to be honest it never really escapes the authors Ive just cited its really great fun, well paced and easy on the eye reading with the positive message that you mustn’t be afraid to go against the grain if that is what your nature is. It is not as clever (or funny) as ‘Pollen’ by Beresford Egan (the best ‘deco-decadent’ novel I know of, but then I would say that wouldn’t I?) but gives it a good run for the money and is far better than the (over-rated) 'Painted Veils'. I just dont know how it had slipped under my radar until now.
And…its free! Yes FREE! Download it from the Internet archive here:
https://archive.org/details/blindbowb...
However, for those who like paper there is a new p/b edition with an introductory essay and footnotes (and hopefully that pesky French translated) by decadent scholar Kirsten MacLeod.
http://www.mhra.org.uk/publications/B...
Either way, no decadent library should be without it.
* Alastair actually did a few illustrations for this book which appear in his book 'Fifty Drawings by Alastair' (1925). Van Vechten introduces it and so the circle is made...
PS: Reviewer advisory for the sensitive: there is some use of the ’N’-word and (even) the ‘J’-word.
December 21, 2017
I had not heard of Mr. Van Vechten and would almost certainly never have read this book were I not reading The Selected Journals of LM Montgomery, who recorded her thoughts on the subject in 1924:
I read two books this week--Waverly and The Blind Bow Boy! The gulf between them is as wide as the gulf between sanity and degeneracy. The latter book is an incredible compound of stupidity, vacuity and nastiness. Yet it has been praised in reviews as "exceedingly clever and brilliant." I should class it with the dull, dirty things obscene little boys scribble on the walls of water-closets. Faugh! I flung the thing into the furnace when I had finished it and washed my hands to get rid of the atmosphere of putrescence. To turn from it to Waverly was like coming out of a pigsty to a blue moorland hill swept clean by the winds of heaven.
Much as it pains me to disagree with Maud, of whom I've read so much it seems at times like we're old friends, I do feel she's rather overstating things. Perhaps she didn't understand the story? Or maybe the obscene little boys of her day wrote more clever and interesting things on the walls of water-closets than they do in modern times. It's not for me to say. Though I'm a bit disappointed, as she set up my expectations for a great deal more obscenity than Mr. Van Vechten delivered.
I found The Blind Bow-Boy to be funny and clever, somewhat lacking in plot but with an engaging story that kept me guessing till the very end who would wind up together, and smiling long after I finished.
I read two books this week--Waverly and The Blind Bow Boy! The gulf between them is as wide as the gulf between sanity and degeneracy. The latter book is an incredible compound of stupidity, vacuity and nastiness. Yet it has been praised in reviews as "exceedingly clever and brilliant." I should class it with the dull, dirty things obscene little boys scribble on the walls of water-closets. Faugh! I flung the thing into the furnace when I had finished it and washed my hands to get rid of the atmosphere of putrescence. To turn from it to Waverly was like coming out of a pigsty to a blue moorland hill swept clean by the winds of heaven.
Much as it pains me to disagree with Maud, of whom I've read so much it seems at times like we're old friends, I do feel she's rather overstating things. Perhaps she didn't understand the story? Or maybe the obscene little boys of her day wrote more clever and interesting things on the walls of water-closets than they do in modern times. It's not for me to say. Though I'm a bit disappointed, as she set up my expectations for a great deal more obscenity than Mr. Van Vechten delivered.
I found The Blind Bow-Boy to be funny and clever, somewhat lacking in plot but with an engaging story that kept me guessing till the very end who would wind up together, and smiling long after I finished.
October 23, 2024
There was a revival of Decadence-influenced novels in the 1920’s. For a quarter of a century Oscar Wilde’s name was barely uttered aloud, but a new generation of gay writers, finding a new freedom to express themselves, began publishing works heavily influenced by him. The greatest difference between the 1890’s and the 1920’s is that in The Jazz Age, writers discovered that decadence could also be funny. The works of Hugh Walpole, Rachilde, Ronald Firbank, and Norman Douglas sometimes had plots that consisted of little more than descriptions of clothes, cosmetics, wallpaper, jewels, pretty boys and exotic locales! Homosexuality no longer needed to be disguised--Cardinals chased altar boys, rich Englishmen in Capri kept Sicilian shepherds, rich widowed aristocrats dressed as men and drank and swore as though they belonged on the docks. Not to be left out, Carl Van Vechtan wanted to show off America’s own adolescent decadent movement in The Blind Bow-Boy. Sent in NY in 1922, the novel follows a thoroughly conventional college graduate whose father throws him into an urban jungle peopled by odd and immoral people. Hilarious episodes and eccentric asides ensue. The novel is thoroughly entertaining, outrageous for its time (it ends with a gay hookup!), and a must read for anyone who loves any of the writers I’ve mentioned above.
October 15, 2022
A bagatelle (comme d'hab) but I enjoyed Peter Whiffle much better.
December 7, 2024
campaspe would’ve been an incredible addition to hbo’s girls
January 20, 2013
What a promising first chapter! But the book does not at all go as expected.
In Chapter four we meet the formidable Campaspe Lorillard, who will dominate the book. At first she appears to be a free-wheeling temptress, but as we get to know her, we learn she has pretensions to gravity. And by the end, I was convinced that she does. She's a sort of American-transcendentalist counterpart to Jean Des Esseintes in Huysmans's À REBOURS.
Addendum: The racism made me cringe, particularly towards the end.
In Chapter four we meet the formidable Campaspe Lorillard, who will dominate the book. At first she appears to be a free-wheeling temptress, but as we get to know her, we learn she has pretensions to gravity. And by the end, I was convinced that she does. She's a sort of American-transcendentalist counterpart to Jean Des Esseintes in Huysmans's À REBOURS.
Addendum: The racism made me cringe, particularly towards the end.
February 12, 2019
Even better the second time! I first read this a couple of years ago and enjoyed it thoroughly. But reading was even more of a pleasure, as I had forgotten some of the key plot elements, and the ending. An amusing little romp through 1922 New York society, finally back in print with a new introduction and footnotes that gave me some new books to look up.
October 3, 2012
I was free and lived alone and without love;
The innocent beauty of the gardens and the day
Would be forever the charm of my life.
The innocent beauty of the gardens and the day
Would be forever the charm of my life.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews