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Blacking Factory / Pennsylvania Gothic
When Charles Dickens was twelve, his father was made bankrupt and young Charles was taken abruptly from school and set to work in a blacking factory. This experience was so traumatic that he could not bring himself to mention it in later life.
The two short novels in this book both deal with the hold the past can have on the future. In The Blacking Factory the boy's hell is an austere British public school and the trauma is the effect of this alien society on a sensitive American adolescent. In Pennsylvania Gothic it is the sinister ethos of death in a pre-war New England town which threatens the boy's security...and his future.
The two short novels in this book both deal with the hold the past can have on the future. In The Blacking Factory the boy's hell is an austere British public school and the trauma is the effect of this alien society on a sensitive American adolescent. In Pennsylvania Gothic it is the sinister ethos of death in a pre-war New England town which threatens the boy's security...and his future.
- GenresFictionLiterature
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
48 people want to read
About the author
Wilfrid Sheed
31 books19 followersSheed was born in London to Francis "Frank" Sheed and Mary "Maisie" Ward, prominent Roman Catholic publishers (Sheed & Ward) in the United Kingdom and the United States during the mid-20th century. Wilfrid Sheed spent his childhood in both England and the United States before attending Downside School and Lincoln College, Oxford where he earned BA (1954) and MA (1957) degrees.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 10, 2018
review for The Blacking Factory only
This novel provides an excellent example of the basic difference between a good writer and a great writer. Namely, that the latter is in control of their effects and their story will be going to a place that is resonant, or at least challenging or interesting. Sheed is definitely a good writer.
So Jimmy is a 15 year old American who has been sent to an English boarding school by his newly single dad (poor mum has been sent to an institution). We first meet Jimmy in the book's lengthy opening, during his adult life as an eloquent but occasionally strident right-wing radio commentator operating out of a small town in California. The rest of the novel details his experiences as a youth in both countries, with the idea being that these experiences explain who Jimmy is now, as well as explaining his intense dislike for England and for what he thinks of as the English character.
Young Jimmy is rather an off-putting little dick, quietly convinced of his superiority but not admitting that to himself, and filled with quick loathing - at first - of all things English, and then later, of all things American. The loathing is also aimed at adults, and his father, the women his father dates, his new friends and his old friends, and the general hypocrisies and fakeness of everyday life and everyday conversation. And at himself, of course. Rather a cousin to Holden Caulfield I suppose, except there was a depth to Holden while Jimmy has an at first interestingly disconcerting but soon very tedious blankness.
The writing, when taken out of the context of its surrounding story, is superb. Sentences and paragraphs are beautifully constructed, full of dire wit and dry judgments; the prose alternately exhibits a cold-eyed clarity or a troubling abstractness, depending on the scene or mental state being described. I was disturbed that the mother was so rarely mentioned, until the last few sections, when it became quite clear why Jimmy has avoided even thinking about her. That was well-done. Also well-done (albeit a little long): the poor lad's nervous breakdown at the end. The book has an intriguingly autobiographical feel to it as well.
Sheed can write, certainly. However what is the point, what does it all amount to? If the goal is to explain the adult Jimmy, that failed completely because I was entirely unconvinced that his fairly rote and distinctly not-horrible experiences in both England and America would create the person he matured into. Trauma was noticeably absent at both the boarding school and during his American summer vacation. Being uncomfortable and full of disappointment when in new surroundings will not automatically lead to becoming a toxic adult, and why would it lead to a teen breakdown? There may be a legacy of mental illness, but that potential is not particularly supported by the narrative. The internal, emotional logic of why Jimmy became the adult he is now was absent, and so what I was left with was mainly a lot of witty but definitely quite sour and eventually tiresome critiques of both the English and the American character. My conclusion: Jimmy is simply a natural born asshole. Despite some pleasant and interesting moments during the first English school sequence, overall this novel felt like being forced to listen to some jerk on the radio talking about things he doesn't like, as if I cared.
16 of 16 in Sixteen Short Novels
This novel provides an excellent example of the basic difference between a good writer and a great writer. Namely, that the latter is in control of their effects and their story will be going to a place that is resonant, or at least challenging or interesting. Sheed is definitely a good writer.
So Jimmy is a 15 year old American who has been sent to an English boarding school by his newly single dad (poor mum has been sent to an institution). We first meet Jimmy in the book's lengthy opening, during his adult life as an eloquent but occasionally strident right-wing radio commentator operating out of a small town in California. The rest of the novel details his experiences as a youth in both countries, with the idea being that these experiences explain who Jimmy is now, as well as explaining his intense dislike for England and for what he thinks of as the English character.
Young Jimmy is rather an off-putting little dick, quietly convinced of his superiority but not admitting that to himself, and filled with quick loathing - at first - of all things English, and then later, of all things American. The loathing is also aimed at adults, and his father, the women his father dates, his new friends and his old friends, and the general hypocrisies and fakeness of everyday life and everyday conversation. And at himself, of course. Rather a cousin to Holden Caulfield I suppose, except there was a depth to Holden while Jimmy has an at first interestingly disconcerting but soon very tedious blankness.
The writing, when taken out of the context of its surrounding story, is superb. Sentences and paragraphs are beautifully constructed, full of dire wit and dry judgments; the prose alternately exhibits a cold-eyed clarity or a troubling abstractness, depending on the scene or mental state being described. I was disturbed that the mother was so rarely mentioned, until the last few sections, when it became quite clear why Jimmy has avoided even thinking about her. That was well-done. Also well-done (albeit a little long): the poor lad's nervous breakdown at the end. The book has an intriguingly autobiographical feel to it as well.
Sheed can write, certainly. However what is the point, what does it all amount to? If the goal is to explain the adult Jimmy, that failed completely because I was entirely unconvinced that his fairly rote and distinctly not-horrible experiences in both England and America would create the person he matured into. Trauma was noticeably absent at both the boarding school and during his American summer vacation. Being uncomfortable and full of disappointment when in new surroundings will not automatically lead to becoming a toxic adult, and why would it lead to a teen breakdown? There may be a legacy of mental illness, but that potential is not particularly supported by the narrative. The internal, emotional logic of why Jimmy became the adult he is now was absent, and so what I was left with was mainly a lot of witty but definitely quite sour and eventually tiresome critiques of both the English and the American character. My conclusion: Jimmy is simply a natural born asshole. Despite some pleasant and interesting moments during the first English school sequence, overall this novel felt like being forced to listen to some jerk on the radio talking about things he doesn't like, as if I cared.
16 of 16 in Sixteen Short Novels
February 24, 2021
Ça m'ennuie
May 30, 2019
I only read "The Blacking Factory," and did so in "Sixteen Short Novels," a book edited by Wilfred Sheed. I probably liked this better than some readers because I could "identify." A somewhat larger review is contained in that book.
April 2, 2023
[Ballantine Books] (November 1969). SB. 246 Pages. Purchased from Richard Dalby’s Library.
“Pennsylvania Gothic” (64 pages) and “The Blacking Factory” (179) explore adolescence, community, alienation, decline and disintegration.
Both exhibit quirky, first class writing with humorous flashes.
I’d respectively rate the stories ***** and ***.
The former achieves a creeping sense of apprehension; tracing the fumbled musings and doings of a juvenile sociopath.
“Pennsylvania Gothic” (64 pages) and “The Blacking Factory” (179) explore adolescence, community, alienation, decline and disintegration.
Both exhibit quirky, first class writing with humorous flashes.
I’d respectively rate the stories ***** and ***.
The former achieves a creeping sense of apprehension; tracing the fumbled musings and doings of a juvenile sociopath.
September 15, 2007
"The Blacking Factory" was written by Wilfred Sheed, the editor of Sixteen Short Novels. Named for Dickens' time working in a blacking factory, Jimmy Bannister sees his enrollment in a tiny English secondary school as his personal "blacking factory."
Jimmy Bannister first strives just to survive in the school, suffering from culture shock. As time passes and he becomes more miserable his plan moves to getting out of there as quickly as possible.
After some of the heavier hitting novellas in the middle of Sixteen Short Novels, "The Blacking Factory" was a rather light hearted ending.
Jimmy Bannister first strives just to survive in the school, suffering from culture shock. As time passes and he becomes more miserable his plan moves to getting out of there as quickly as possible.
After some of the heavier hitting novellas in the middle of Sixteen Short Novels, "The Blacking Factory" was a rather light hearted ending.
April 12, 2020
A kind of dated satire of 1950s America. The first novella in the book I found a lot more effective, maybe bc it was more of a horror story than the second which seemed overly long and unconvincing.
The writing style is interesting but strange, almost reading like a young adult novel but with much more adult subject matter
The writing style is interesting but strange, almost reading like a young adult novel but with much more adult subject matter
November 15, 2024
Pennsylvania Gothic
Good build of a protagonist’s break from reality, crafting the whole tale to leave things open-ended is a fine and terrifying touch.
The Blacking Factory
Overwrought and underdeveloped. A deep-fried novella of a tepid crisis of identity and nationalism cooked in a batter of universal loathing.
Good build of a protagonist’s break from reality, crafting the whole tale to leave things open-ended is a fine and terrifying touch.
The Blacking Factory
Overwrought and underdeveloped. A deep-fried novella of a tepid crisis of identity and nationalism cooked in a batter of universal loathing.
January 25, 2020
I only read “The Blacking Factory.”
December 9, 2024
Only read "Pennsylvania Gothic," which was about a third of the book, but, wow, that was unsettling!
September 27, 2016
"Buzz off now; be a nice little intellectual disaster area, won't you?"
"While Mrs. Bannister was on hand, his father had been one of those fixed middle-aged men with a closetful of blue and brown suits and a repertoire of blue and brown jokes."
sup·pu·rate
ˈsəpyəˌrāt/
verb: undergo the formation of pus; fester.
synonyms: discharge, run, weep,become septic
"Other buses had come up behind, teeming, suppurating with boys."
I loved The Blacking Factory. It's up there with the best coming of age stories. It brought to mind Stephen King's wonderful The Body(and its excellent movie Stand By Me), Willa Cather's The Magic Bluff, and even J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, although it's mostly more humorous and optimistic. Sheed writes with a satiric eye for society's rituals and a strong affection for his teenage hero. I wish he'd written about my 15th year. He would have made it much more enjoyable.
"While Mrs. Bannister was on hand, his father had been one of those fixed middle-aged men with a closetful of blue and brown suits and a repertoire of blue and brown jokes."
sup·pu·rate
ˈsəpyəˌrāt/
verb: undergo the formation of pus; fester.
synonyms: discharge, run, weep,become septic
"Other buses had come up behind, teeming, suppurating with boys."
I loved The Blacking Factory. It's up there with the best coming of age stories. It brought to mind Stephen King's wonderful The Body(and its excellent movie Stand By Me), Willa Cather's The Magic Bluff, and even J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, although it's mostly more humorous and optimistic. Sheed writes with a satiric eye for society's rituals and a strong affection for his teenage hero. I wish he'd written about my 15th year. He would have made it much more enjoyable.
Want to read
June 18, 2012Sheed, Wilfrid
Sixteen Short Novels
In compilation only.
Sixteen Short Novels
In compilation only.
tbr-own-yet-to-read
January 10, 2015Ordered from Abe Books for an early self-Santa'ed Xmayulestivusolstikwanzukkah gift.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews