None But the Lonely Heart

by Richard Llewellyn

In this story author looks at life through the eyes of Ernie Mott, an inarticulate London Cockney whose horizon is bounded by mean whose only recreation is the tawdry Fun Fair; whose ambition is to be " in the money." : for whom women are a source of tantalizing and unsatisfied desire.

Genres: Fiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Richard Llewellyn (real name Richard Dafydd Vivian Llewellyn Lloyd) was a British novelist.

Llewellyn was born of Welsh parents in Hendon, north London in 1906. Only after his death was it discovered that his claim that he was born in St. Davids, West Wales was false, though of course he was of Welsh blood.

Several of his novels dealt with a Welsh theme, the best-known being How Green Was My Valley (1939), which won international acclaim and was made into a classic Hollywood film. It immortalised the way of life of the South Wales Valleys coal mining communities, where Llewellyn spent a small amount of time with his grandfather. Three sequels followed.

He lived a peripatetic life, travelling widely throughout his life. Before World War II, he spent periods working in hotels, wrote a play, worked as a coal miner and produced his best known novel. During World War II, he rose to the rank of Captain in the Welsh Guards. Following the war, he worked as a journalist, covering the Nuremberg Trials, and then as a screenwriter for MGM. Late in his life, he lived in Eilat, Israel.

Protagonists who assume new identities, often because they are transplanted into foreign cultures, are a recurring element in Llewellyn's novels, including a spy adventure that extends through several volumes.

Llewellyn married twice: his first wife was Nona Sonstenby, whom he married in 1952 and divorced in 1968, and his second wife was Susan Heimann, whom he married in 1974.

Reviews

[Sondra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read the author's masterpiece "How Green Was My Valley", I had high expectations for this lesser-known novel, and I was not disappointed. There is a school of thought among literary critics that says in order to be successful, a novel must have a sympathetic protagonist with whom readers empathize, and must have "character development" throughout the course of the novel. I disagree. Ernie Mott is NOT a sympathetic character. He is basically a wretch with no desire to better himself, other than by making a quick buck smashing store windows for a crime boss who sells stolen goods on the black market. Nor does Ernie Mott experience much character development. He is pretty much the same confused, self-absorbed loser at the end of the novel as he was at the beginning. Nonetheless his story is riveting, and it is told in the flawlessly rendered voice of a London Cockney whose options are limited by virtue of his class, his upbringing, and his own lack of ambition. The story unfolds as a running monologue within the mind of the protagonist, in a style that could be considered the precursor of stream-of-consciousness writing. The point of view and the cockney dialect are consistent throughout the 400-plus pages of the novel, which is quite a feat for any author not belonging to that particular class of Londoners to pull off.

One of the features I liked best about this novel is that it provides a glimpse into a side of the United Kingdom that most tourists, and most of the world for that matter, would otherwise never see. The novel is set in London, but this is not the London of Buckingham Palace, the Royal Family, Big Ben, or well-dressed ladies sipping four o'clock tea and eating crumpets. This is a London filled with gang violence, crime, cruelty, and desperation, such as most Americans would associate with the inner city ghettoes of Chicago and LA, rather than the country that gave us Masterpiece Theatre and The Beatles.

Despite the violence and cruelty that surrounds him, the narrator has a poetic sensibility that he keeps hidden from his cronies, for fear he will be ridiculed, or worse. Here's how he describes surroundings that most people would find bleak and depressing. "The morning was coming up a plain brightish blue, and the river was greyish blue, silvery up the top there, all rushed aboutas if somebody was giving it a right old stir just round the corner, purpose to make the little boats all bob about, just like the milk cart. A couple of steamers was coming down, with big white moustaches floating away from their noses, just like old Charlie Pool, blowing big rolls of black smoke all over the show, pulling long flat barges all tied up of tarpaulin, making a proper hard job of it and letting everybody know it."

The author's impeccable style, beauty of language, and authenticity of setting more than compensate for the lack of character development and a plot that doesn't really seem to go anywhere. I found this book to be pure poetry from beginning to end, while still maintaining the structure of well-written novel.

[Richard Bentley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book deserves some discussion. I have read two books by Richard Llewellyn, this and How Green was my Valley. Both books use exclusively the native dialect of the protagonists. In How Green was my Valley, this is understandable because of Llewellyn's Welsh background, but in the case of this book, it should be pointed out that Mr. Llewellyn spent quite a bit of time absorbing the dialect of London Cockney while living in the actual neighborhood of the people that use it; not only living in the neighborhood but living under the different conditions experienced by the people.

The result is a long stream-of-consciousness narration by the protagonist as he makes his way through life, rising above his place to his ultimate destination. It is moving and real. It is also extremely tedious to crawl through the thick underbrush of his dialect. I think it necessary to do so, however. Having said that, I would suggest attacking this book by nibbling at it rather than reading it straight through. At some point things should smooth out to make more rapid headway.

Placing yourself in another culture when reading is an imperfect exercise at best, but it is helpful to undergo forced immersion in the culture by way of constant reference to the same platform. A good book that left a melancholy shadow.

[Sarah (Gutierrez) Myers · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you can handle 400+ pages of stream of consciousness in a cockney dialect, then maybe you could enjoy this book. Personally, I found it exhausting.

There are some few places in the book, where I thought the author really "did it proper, he did." A few moments touch on comprehensible human passions of pain and loss, or the tragedy of failing to attain the good--a horrible scene in a city sewer, a car wreck, and a parting in a prison hospital. But for the most part, the author strains too hard to make his protagonist, Ernie Mott, a miserable and un-aspiring wretch. Perhaps Llewellyn was trying to make a point about a society that made Ernie that way, but whatever the author was trying to say did not succeed as literature. The book comes off as a dull complaint, where it might have been a moving cry for sympathy.


Watch the movie; the simple screenplay by Cliff Odets was far better than original author's huge book.

[Christine Sinclair · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel is by the author of How Green Was My Valley, a favorite of mine, and it also was made into a movie, starring Cary Grant and Ethel Barrymore. It's the story of Ernie Mott, a cockney lad on the cusp of manhood. The writing is Dickensian, with numerous colorful supporting characters and scenes of London between the two world wars. Only three stars because the ending was extremely disappointing. (Maybe Hollywood changed it. I'll watch the movie to find out.)