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Castle Corner
Violent evictions in Donegal, fashionable drawing-rooms in London, compromise and degradation in a West African trading station – Joyce Cary’s panoramic novel follows the fortunes of the Anglo-Irish Corner family as they contend with a changing world at the nineteenth century’s turn. Although not published until 1938, Castle Corner has been widely acclaimed as comparable with the best nineteenth-century family chronicles. With a diverse and colourful cast of characters from many walks of life, it traces the shifting fortunes of the Anglo-Irish Corner family towards the end of the Victorian era, fortunes that are influenced as much by the contrasting characters of the protagonists as by the social and political upheaval of the time.Praise for Castle ‘Mr Cary’s book is stupendous … There is an intellectual richness … pages of allusive anecdote, chat, picture, narrative, family history, and a grim display of human squalor… It is a grand effect; and the book has a fury of incontrovertible detail’ - Frank Swinnerton, Observer Joyce Cary was born in 1888 into an old Anglo-Irish family and educated at Clifton. He studied art, first in Edinburgh and then in Paris, before going up to Trinity College, Oxford in 1909 to read law. On coming down he served as a Red Cross orderly in the Balkan War of 1912–13, the inspiration for Memoir of the Bobotes, before joining the Nigerian Political Service. He served in the Nigeria Regiment during the First World War, and his time in Africa provided the inspiration for his first four novels. Though he settled in Oxford as a full-time writer in 1920, it was not until 1932 that his first book was published. At the time of his death in 1957, he was recognised as one of the world’s leading novelists.
416 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1938
About the author
Joyce Cary
98 books97 followersCary now undertook his great works examining historical and social change in England during his own lifetime. The First Trilogy (1941–44) finally provided Cary with a reasonable income, and The Horse's Mouth (1944) remains his most popular novel. Cary's pamphlet "The Case for African Freedom" (1941), published by Orwell's Searchlight Books series, had attracted some interest, and the film director Thorold Dickinson asked for Cary's help in developing a wartime movie set partly in Africa. In 1943, while writing The Horse's Mouth, Cary travelled to Africa with a film crew to work on Men of Two Worlds.
Cary travelled to India in 1946 on a second film project with Dickinson, but the struggle against the British for national independence made movie-making impossible, and the project was abandoned. The Moonlight (1946), a novel about the difficulties of women, ended a long period of intense creativity for Cary. Gertrude was suffering from cancer and his output slowed for a while.
Gertrude died as A Fearful Joy (1949) was being published. Cary was now at the height of his fame and fortune. He began preparing a series of prefatory notes for the re-publication of all his works in a standard edition published by Michael Joseph.
He visited the United States, collaborated on a stage adaptation of Mister Johnson, and was offered a CBE, which he refused. Meanwhile he continued work on the three novels that make up the Second Trilogy (1952–55). In 1952, Cary had some muscle problems which were originally diagnosed as bursitis, but as more symptoms were noted over the next two years, the diagnosis was changed to that of motor neuron disease, a wasting and gradual paralysis that was terminal.
As his physical powers failed, Cary had to have a pen tied to his hand and his arm supported by a rope in order to write. Finally, he resorted to dictation until unable to speak, and then ceased writing for the first time since 1912. His last work, The Captive and the Free (1959), first volume of a projected trilogy on religion, was unfinished at his death on March 29, 1957.
Cary travelled to India in 1946 on a second film project with Dickinson, but the struggle against the British for national independence made movie-making impossible, and the project was abandoned. The Moonlight (1946), a novel about the difficulties of women, ended a long period of intense creativity for Cary. Gertrude was suffering from cancer and his output slowed for a while.
Gertrude died as A Fearful Joy (1949) was being published. Cary was now at the height of his fame and fortune. He began preparing a series of prefatory notes for the re-publication of all his works in a standard edition published by Michael Joseph.
He visited the United States, collaborated on a stage adaptation of Mister Johnson, and was offered a CBE, which he refused. Meanwhile he continued work on the three novels that make up the Second Trilogy (1952–55). In 1952, Cary had some muscle problems which were originally diagnosed as bursitis, but as more symptoms were noted over the next two years, the diagnosis was changed to that of motor neuron disease, a wasting and gradual paralysis that was terminal.
As his physical powers failed, Cary had to have a pen tied to his hand and his arm supported by a rope in order to write. Finally, he resorted to dictation until unable to speak, and then ceased writing for the first time since 1912. His last work, The Captive and the Free (1959), first volume of a projected trilogy on religion, was unfinished at his death on March 29, 1957.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 4, 2017
“Castle Corner’ was intended to be the first part of three or four volumes that Joyce Carey hoped would be his major opus. However, a less than enthusiastic critical reception dampened those hopes completely and Carey abandoned the project, leaving us with only this first volume.
It’s a great pity that Carey lacked the convictions of his undeniable talent. An artist with a stronger ego may have gone ahead certain that the critics were wrong, as they may well have been in this case.
“Castle Corner” is a fine novel, an engrossing read from start to finish. Carey creates a vast range of colorful characters, located largely in Ireland whose landscapes he evokes with much love and craft, as well as some sections in West Africa, where Carey himself had spent time.
Despite being one part of a series never undertaken, “Castle Corner” stands well on its own; that is until its slightly abrupt and seemingly unresolved ending. However, that should not put readers off since there’s much to enjoy in this fine, somewhat undervalued novel.
It’s a great pity that Carey lacked the convictions of his undeniable talent. An artist with a stronger ego may have gone ahead certain that the critics were wrong, as they may well have been in this case.
“Castle Corner” is a fine novel, an engrossing read from start to finish. Carey creates a vast range of colorful characters, located largely in Ireland whose landscapes he evokes with much love and craft, as well as some sections in West Africa, where Carey himself had spent time.
Despite being one part of a series never undertaken, “Castle Corner” stands well on its own; that is until its slightly abrupt and seemingly unresolved ending. However, that should not put readers off since there’s much to enjoy in this fine, somewhat undervalued novel.
February 22, 2019
A lovely novel.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews