Catastrophe Practice

Catastrophe Practice #1

by Nicholas Mosley

In his recent novels--including his award-winning Hopeful Monsters--Nicholas Mosley has investigated the patterns that govern our mental and emotional lives and the possibilities that we have for change, and nowhere has he explored such themes with greater concentration than in Catastrophe Practice. A unique book whose characters and concerns are the basis for the other four novels of the Catastrophe Practice Series - Hopeful Monsters, Imago Bird, Judith, and Serpent-- Catastrophe Practice is remarkable both in its form (three plays with prefaces and a novella) and in its ability to convey the complexities of thought. Drawing upon catastrophe theory to examine the discontinuities in human personality and our tendency to progress suddenly rather than smoothly, the six characters of Catastrophe Practice struggle to disrupt traditional ways of being. These characters (and the author) feel that conventional ways of interpreting the world have become destructive--conventional language, conventional feelings, conventional situations--and try to find a way to realize genuine experience.

Genres: Fiction, British Literature, 20th Century

342 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Nicholas Mosley was educated at Eton and Oxford. He served in Italy during World War II, and published his first novel, Spaces of the Dark, in 1951. His book Hopeful Monsters won the 1990 Whitbread Award.

Mosley was the author of several works of nonfiction, most notably the autobiography Efforts at Truth and a biography of his father, Sir Oswald Mosley, entitled Rules of the Game/Beyond the Pale.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 2 out of 5]

An unusual hodgepodge, an unusual manner in which to kick off a most unusual quintet. Three ‘Plays For Not Acting’, each prefaced with a rambling philosophical essay, comprise the first part. These plays, ‘Skylight’, ‘Landfall’, and ‘Cell’, are hardcore avant-garde affairs, replete with complex stage directions, characters who talk in non sequiturs, bizarre poetic phrases, and never to each other, and babble the sort of pretentious drama-school dialogue once in vogue in the 1970s school of useless arts degrees. The short novel, ‘Cypher’, rounds off the rest of the book, and puts the reader in safer prose territory, however, Mosley at this stage isn’t concerned with the stylistic mastery of his previous works, but advancing his philosophical theories, and this means the infuriating staccato dialogue technique, the tendency for the characters to think and speak in unusual poetic shards and non sequiturs, and the abandonment of any sort of helpful entrypoint for the reader. I found this increasingly painful to read. On the plus side, Hopeful Monsters and Impossible Object are masterpieces. I remember those fondly.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The kind of book that makes me feel dumb, like I should be getting something more out of it but instead I'm just missing it. Interesting but maybe a little too experimental.

[Gaz · Rating 2 out of 5]

The plays just don't work, too abstruse to communicate. The novella intrigues and the essays work to provide a schema for the whole mess. But still 'm intrigued, am I confusing difficulty with intelligence? Still I admire the chutzpah that went into making it.

[Harry Collier IV]

Did not finish.
I understand that Mosley is very clever and I understand that this book is clever but the first play did nothing for me and I just don't have the will or the time...