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A Gift of the Dusk
The scene is a retreat among Swiss mountains, a place of sunlight and a place of exile, the life of which is depicted as it is really lived beneath the blinds of the sunlit balconies. It is the story of two people who, in a companionship intimate as their loneliness, poignant as their need, discover the gift that the dusk of their lives has to give. With an Introduction by J. Middleton Murry.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
4 people want to read
About the author
R.O. Prowse
7 booksRichard Orton Prowse (1862–1949) was an English novelist born at Woodbridge in East Anglia.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 21, 2025
I am an owner of a small used and rare bookstore, so many books flow through my hands. I know I cannot read all of them, but there are some (perhaps too many) that I set aside in the hopes I will eventually be able to read those few.
A Gift of the Dusk caught my attention due to its opening lines:
"The first strangeness is wearing off. The sense of discovery with which I began, the old sense of adventure, the hazard of the new experience, the energy given by the first arrival, have all, as it were, gone out, as in hours of fitful brightness the lights go out on the mountains I see from this balcony."
It is a very subtle, and sometimes overly delicate narrative where much of the book is taken up with the narrator's philosophical and generally morose thoughts as he wiles away his time in a Swiss alpine sanitarium for tuberculosis patients. Much effort is given to describe the landscape: pale mountains, unknowable dark valleys, and an ever-present fog which rolls in with winter. The other portion of the narrative is taken up with describing the moods of the people stuck in this desolate landscape. What little "action" there is, all in character development, begins when the narrator Stephen realizes he's developing strong feelings for fellow patient and sanitarium resident Mary. This emotional entanglement, strained by the realization that one is getting better and the other is not, provides the tension that pushes a reader through to the end.
There is almost nothing that can be found easily about author Richard Orton Prowse online, though he apparently has a listing in the online The Oxford Companion to Edwardian Fiction, but not being a subscriber means I am unable to read it. Anyway, I did find he lived from 1862 to 1949 and wrote at least 13 novels.
A contemporary review of "A Gift of Dusk" by one Beatrice Kean Seymour that I found in a Google e-book copy of a "Present-Day Notes on Art" matches my sentiment exactly with its statements of "not to-be-recommended for the reader in a hurry" and "[this book] is no escape from life; it is, rather, a burrowing into life's inner desolation, a lifting of the curtain for a brief space while we stand looking along the road that goes down amid the shadows to death."
The gift of the dusk is in fact the companionship in love found in the shared journey through these shadows. The language is often overwrought, but if this to be read at all, it should be read for its contemplative, lyrical language. Some notable lines for me were:
"Silence possessed all the darkened places, all the frequented ways in which footfalls of the day had ceased; and down the silent and darkened ways mystery seemed to glide as the dim form of some obscure barque might glide on a waterway in an underworld of legend and the dead"
"Life means whatever we most want to do: paint pictures, write books, make money, make love, make the world - or ourselves - a little better. Suffering perplexes us, because nobody wants to suffer."
The edition I read, The Traveler's Library edition, published by Jonathan Cape in 1932, reproduces a glowing review by Katherine Mansfield, who would die a few years later from tuberculosis herself. Her own review is not spoiler free, so on the off chance you plan on reading this book, and you have this particular edition of this scarce book, skip over the review to feel the full poignancy of the text.
A Gift of the Dusk caught my attention due to its opening lines:
"The first strangeness is wearing off. The sense of discovery with which I began, the old sense of adventure, the hazard of the new experience, the energy given by the first arrival, have all, as it were, gone out, as in hours of fitful brightness the lights go out on the mountains I see from this balcony."
It is a very subtle, and sometimes overly delicate narrative where much of the book is taken up with the narrator's philosophical and generally morose thoughts as he wiles away his time in a Swiss alpine sanitarium for tuberculosis patients. Much effort is given to describe the landscape: pale mountains, unknowable dark valleys, and an ever-present fog which rolls in with winter. The other portion of the narrative is taken up with describing the moods of the people stuck in this desolate landscape. What little "action" there is, all in character development, begins when the narrator Stephen realizes he's developing strong feelings for fellow patient and sanitarium resident Mary. This emotional entanglement, strained by the realization that one is getting better and the other is not, provides the tension that pushes a reader through to the end.
There is almost nothing that can be found easily about author Richard Orton Prowse online, though he apparently has a listing in the online The Oxford Companion to Edwardian Fiction, but not being a subscriber means I am unable to read it. Anyway, I did find he lived from 1862 to 1949 and wrote at least 13 novels.
A contemporary review of "A Gift of Dusk" by one Beatrice Kean Seymour that I found in a Google e-book copy of a "Present-Day Notes on Art" matches my sentiment exactly with its statements of "not to-be-recommended for the reader in a hurry" and "[this book] is no escape from life; it is, rather, a burrowing into life's inner desolation, a lifting of the curtain for a brief space while we stand looking along the road that goes down amid the shadows to death."
The gift of the dusk is in fact the companionship in love found in the shared journey through these shadows. The language is often overwrought, but if this to be read at all, it should be read for its contemplative, lyrical language. Some notable lines for me were:
"Silence possessed all the darkened places, all the frequented ways in which footfalls of the day had ceased; and down the silent and darkened ways mystery seemed to glide as the dim form of some obscure barque might glide on a waterway in an underworld of legend and the dead"
"Life means whatever we most want to do: paint pictures, write books, make money, make love, make the world - or ourselves - a little better. Suffering perplexes us, because nobody wants to suffer."
The edition I read, The Traveler's Library edition, published by Jonathan Cape in 1932, reproduces a glowing review by Katherine Mansfield, who would die a few years later from tuberculosis herself. Her own review is not spoiler free, so on the off chance you plan on reading this book, and you have this particular edition of this scarce book, skip over the review to feel the full poignancy of the text.
March 16, 2010
There isn't much of a plot... it i sthere, it is just very simple. Where this book gets its mileage is through characterization.
I got this as a fairly random gift. I had never heard o fit or the author.
I got this as a fairly random gift. I had never heard o fit or the author.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews