Il santo

by V.S. Pritchett

Maestro indisputato del racconto lungo, Pritchett è nel Novecento inglese l’inattesa reincarnazione, la più convincente, la più felice, di Charles Dickens. Basterà leggere qui, per averne la prova, "Al ritorno di mia figlia", dove la protagonista, che parenti e amici avevano dato per spacciata o creduto prigioniera in qualche campo di concentramento giapponese, torna in patria alla fine della seconda guerra mondiale. Non è che il primo, grandioso equivoco di una lunga serie, esilarante e atroce, che Pritchett squaderna sotto i nostri occhi con la saggezza ingenua e un po’ sorniona del grande narratore, di chi sa stanare la vita in tutte le sue ambiguità.
Ma Pritchett è capace di sorprenderci anche nei racconti più brevi. Come "Il santo", storia dell’improvvisa perdita della fede da parte di un diciassettenne, e ritratto impietoso, nel suo candore quasi agiografico ma proprio per questo micidiale, dello specchiato membro di una presunta «Chiesa dell’Ultima Purificazione». O "La caduta", dove ci presenta lo spettacolo grottesco di un uomo condannato ogni volta dalle circostanze a esibirsi, dietro la raggelante maschera di un inerme Buster Keaton, nella sua specialità: la gag più insulsa, disperata e oscenamente triste cui sia dato assistere.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

194 pages, Paperback

Published July 5, 2022

About the author

Victor Sawdon Pritchett was the first of four children of Walter Sawdon Pritchett and Beatrice Helena (née Martin). His father, a London businessman in financial difficulties, had come to Ipswich to start a shop selling newspapers and stationery. The business was struggling and the couple were lodging over a toyshop at 41 St Nicholas Street where Pritchett was born on 16 December 1900. Beatrice had expected a girl, whom she planned to name after the Queen. Pritchett never liked his first name, which is why he always styled himself with his initials; even close friends would call him VSP.

Pritchett's father was a steady Christian Scientist and unsteady in all else. Walter and Beatrice had come to Ipswich to be near her sister who had married money and lived in Warrington Road. Within a year Walter was declared bankrupt, the family moved to Woodford, Essex, then to Derby, and he began selling women's clothing and accessories as a travelling salesman. Pritchett was soon sent with his brother Cyril to live with their paternal grandparents in Sedbergh, where the boys attended their first school. Walter's business failures, his casual attitude to credit, and his easy deceit obliged the family to move frequently. The family was reunited but life was always precarious; they tended to live in London suburbs with members of Beatrice's family. They returned to Ipswich in 1910, living for a year near Cauldwell Hall Road, trying to evade Walter's creditors. At this time Pritchett attended St. John's School. Subsequently Pritchett attended Alleyn's School, Dulwich, and Dulwich College but he stayed nowhere for very long. When his father went to fight in World War I, Pritchett left school. Later in the war Walter turned his hand to aircraft design, of which he knew nothing, and his later ventures included art needlework, property speculation, and faith healing.

Pritchett was a leather buyer from 1916 to 1920, when he moved to Paris, where he worked as a shop assistant. In 1923 he started writing for the Christian Science Monitor, which sent him to Ireland and Spain. From 1926 he wrote reviews for the paper and for the New Statesman, which later appointed him literary editor.

Pritchett's first book described his journey across Spain (Marching Spain 1928) and Clare Drummer (1929) was about his experiences in Ireland. Whilst in Ireland he met his first wife, Evelyn Vigors, but it was not to be a happy marriage.

Pritchett published five novels but he claimed not to enjoy their creation. His reputation was established by a collection of short stories (The Spanish Virgin and Other Stories (1932)).

In 1936 he divorced his first wife, and married Dorothy Rudge Roberts; they had two children. The marriage lasted until Pritchett's death, although they both had other relationships. His son is the journalist Oliver Pritchett and his grandson (son of Oliver) is the cartoonist Matt Pritchett.

During World War II Pritchett worked for the BBC and the Ministry of Information whilst continuing to submit a weekly essay to the New Statesman. After the war he wrote widely and he started taking teaching positions at universities in the United States: Princeton (1953), the University of California (1962), Columbia University and Smith College. He was fluent in German, Spanish, and French, and published successful biographies of Honoré de Balzac (1973), Ivan Turgenev (1977) and Anton Chekhov (1988), although he did not know Russian and had never visited the Soviet Union.

Pritchett was knighted in 1975 for his services to literature and became Companion of Honour in 1993. His awards include Heinemann Award (1969), PEN Award (1974), W.H. Smith Literary Award (1990), and Golden Pen Award (1993). He died of a stroke in London on 20 March 1997.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V._S._Pr...

Reviews

[Daniel T · Rating 1 out of 5]

اتلاف وقت
راجع یک فرقه و کشیش عجیب و غریب
درکل نرید سراغش 🤝

[Marco Simeoni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Borghesia sbeffeggiata sorseggiando un tè
quasi 🌟🌟🌟

Forse la conoscenza di Sir Victor Sawdon Pritchett non doveva avvenire attraverso questa raccolta di racconti.
In Inghilterra c'è un piatto della loro tradizione che si chiama "Toad in the hole" ma, a differenza del nome, l'ingrediente principale non è stato pescato dalle paludi Okefenokee.
Questi racconti (il secondo e ai limiti del romanzo breve), se si esclude il primo che da anche nome all'antologia, sono spiazzanti come il titolo del loro piatto.
Mi sono ritrovato ad oscillare su una bilancia: su un piattino apprezzo la penna e l'umorismo raffinato di Pritchett sull'altro ho vissuto un senso di dispersione e di incompiuto.
Ho cercato altre recensioni online per vedere se le sensazioni fossero condivise. Buco nell'acqua.

Il santo (1945) ✸✸✸✸ (parte dei salici ✸✸✸✸ 1/2)

Al ritorno di mia figlia (1961) ✸✸✸ (tematiche e complessità ✸✸✸✸ - Lunghezza e parte centrale ✸✸)

La caduta (1960)✸✸ (dovuto al surrealismo nella parte finale)

La bella di Camberwell (1974)✸✸✸ (inizio ✸✸✸ 1/2 - parte finale ✸✸)

[George Ilsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A drolly humorous British story about a serious topic — faith and religious conviction.

The "Purifiers" never admit to anything they don't like; their name for Evil is "Error".

Sect members found themselves "isolated and hated" in their community. "What the unconverted could not forgive in us was first that we believed in successful prayer and, secondly, that our revelation came from Toronto."

How droll is that? The Church of the Last Purification started in Toronto, Canada.

{Spoilers ahead} The voice of the story, a boy who lost his religious faith while punting, encounters a certain influential Mr. Timberlake "who, owing to his contacts with Toronto, spoke with an American accent." Mr. Timberlake denies he is wet after falling into the river, and the story ends, 16 years later, with his death. I had to read the ending a couple of times, in order to glean the many allusions and subtle references.

This is not a story that hits you over the head with a hammer, but is one that burrows under the skin, digging for the very heart.

[morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

cult story and religious trauma, I loved that one

[Amelia Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Its always the first few sentences that I find boring, and then I get the most colorful and funny and awkward scene ever.

The Purifiers is a silly name, and their dogma is even sillier. Just be believing that your God would never want anything bad happen to you so you blindly refuse to acknowledge anything bad that happens to you is quite contradictory and just ultimately hurts the believer. I guess the Uncle is like an enabler of people who preach and practice these beliefs, and the MC is thankfully normal enough to realize how stupid it is. Mr. Justin Timberlake (ok it’s Hubert Timberlake but whatever) is so sad. He has a heart disease so he had to be bored by everything, and even when dangling and falling into a lake he had to be silent and calm and not even acknowledge that anything happened, not even when he ruined his suit with pollen and turned it from blue to yellow (freaking hilarious). The whole experience with the MC and Mr. Timberlake is just so beautifully awkward and hilarious it could be a short film in itself, it might not do it district though because Mr Timberlake is just even funnier if you imagine him, I don’t think anyone could match up to the essence of this bored, pink, pudgy old man. I guess this novel just makes fun of people who blindly believe that they can ignore anything bad in their lives if they truly believe in it if it’s in religion. Although I think religion is healthy if it helps get you through tough times, rather than just ignoring these tough times and numbing yourself to all feeling. The ending confused me a bit because the ape was depicted to be eating Timberlake’s heart, and I thought the ape was just meant to symbolize doubt towards your religion. Does that mean Timberlake died because he doubted it so much over the years but didn’t let it affect him? No that doesn’t rlly make sense, but I’m not sure how else the ape can symbolize the same thing for both MC and Timberlake. Oh well

[Indira · Rating 1 out of 5]

A very bland story, heavily reliant on religious allegory. The following line is, however, a beautiful sentence:

...as if I had gone into my bedroom at night and had found a gross ape seated in my bed and thereafter following me about with his grunts and his fleas and a look, relentless and ancient, scored on his brown face.

[Marcel · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5!

The characters were bland to me, but the moral and theme of denying the existence of evil makes beauty as non-existent is really quite interesting and displays that balance truly is the place to be!🤤

[Mirko · Rating 2 out of 5]

Prosa confusa e storie inconcludenti

[Sanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious

[Alex Marquardt · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is not bad but also not god its Okay just Okay.

[Benedikt · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining story, in which I was particularly fascinated by the description of the church representative, Mr. Timberlake. He's a truly peculiar and comic character. Overall, I found the story somewhat flat. I don't quite understand why the first-person narrator claims to lose faith due to the events. It gives the story an unnecessarily depressing undertone.

[Crescenzo]

Il "ritorno di mia figlia" - in cui Hilda fa ritorno da parenti e amici, dopo che questi l'avevano ritenuta morta, dopo una lunga prigionia in un campo giapponese - rappresenta insieme a "Il santo" - un diciasettenne che si ritrova a perdere la fede - la prova insindacabile di una sorta di reincarnazione dickensiana in Pritchett, proprio con quel gioco dell'equivoco tipico di Dickens, con le inesorabili rappresentazioni naturali tetre e cupe che tendevano a rendere inequivocabili i suoi romanzi e che si ripercorrono e si inseguono anche nella scrittura di Prtchett.

[Maxine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the beginning and the middle of this short story but not the end.