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The Locusts Have No King
Alternate-cover edition for ISBN ISBN 1883642426 / 9781883642426 is located here: The Locusts Have No King
No one has satirized New York society quite like Dawn Powell, and in this classic novel she turns her sharp eye and stinging wit on the literary world, and "identifies every sort of publishing type with the patience of a pathologist removing organs for inspection." Frederick Olliver, an obscure historian and writer, is having an affair with the restively married, beautiful, and hugely successful playwright, Lyle Gaynor. Powell sets a see-saw in motion when Olliver is swept up by the tasteless publishing tycoon, Tyson Bricker, and his new book makes its way onto to the bestseller lists just as Lyle's Broadway career is coming apart.
No one has satirized New York society quite like Dawn Powell, and in this classic novel she turns her sharp eye and stinging wit on the literary world, and "identifies every sort of publishing type with the patience of a pathologist removing organs for inspection." Frederick Olliver, an obscure historian and writer, is having an affair with the restively married, beautiful, and hugely successful playwright, Lyle Gaynor. Powell sets a see-saw in motion when Olliver is swept up by the tasteless publishing tycoon, Tyson Bricker, and his new book makes its way onto to the bestseller lists just as Lyle's Broadway career is coming apart.
286 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1948
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1832 people want to read
About the author
Dawn Powell
43 books338 followersDawn Powell was an American writer of satirical novels and stories that manage to be barbed and sensitive at the same time.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 92 reviews
April 4, 2021
Book Circle Reads 75
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: No one has satirized New York society quite like Dawn Powell, and in this classic novel she turns her sharp eye and stinging wit on the literary world, and "identifies every sort of publishing type with the patience of a pathologist removing organs for inspection."
Frederick Olliver, an obscure historian and writer, is having an affair with the restively married, beautiful, and hugely successful playwright, Lyle Gaynor. Powell sets a see-saw in motion when Olliver is swept up by the tasteless publishing tycoon, Tyson Bricker, and his new book makes its way onto to the bestseller lists just as Lyle's Broadway career is coming apart.
"For decades Dawn Powell was always just on the verge of ceasing to be a cult and becoming a major religion." -- Gore Vidal
My Review: My mother loved Dawn Powell, I think in part because Powell was tart-tongued and in part because no woman in Powell's books gets away with anything...but none of them seems to have any regrets about it.
We had old editions of her novels around, and when I found them and read them, I was surprised by the fact that my religious nut Fascist mama had time for this New York socialite world. When questioned, Mama said, "I grew up, daaaaaaahhhhhliiiin. You might, too. Your books won't, though."
They haven't. I wonder what makes someone hold onto a past they don't like anymore...gosh, can't think why anyone would do that....
So I read this book in the 1990s when Gore Vidal had started making noise about Powell and how very good she was. Steerforth Press, does it even exist now?, put several of the books out (this was after their big success with Mister Sandman, a seriously creepy book that I quite liked) for our book circle. A lot of people found it pretty dated then, what with adultery being gasp-worthy and playwrights being famous for non-musicals and men writing history books getting major publishing contracts.
I found Lyle and Frederick fresh as Vermont cream: She's bored by her life because she's never found a reason not to be, takes up with a man she doesn't much like because he's *completely* unlike the men she's around all the time, and when he becomes like those men, the usual thing happens. Bikini Atoll blows up. I mean, don't hydrogen bombs blow island paradises to kingdom come when you reject your adulterous lovers?
Powell is one witty broad, with a tongue so sharp Dorothy Parker was jealous and afraid. Her writing is **STILL** not yodeled about and caroled over, and I do not for the life of me understand why. It's caustically funny, it's well-constructed in the plot department, and it revels in its wickedness. It's what David Lodge and Christopher Buckley can only aspire to: Good and humorous.
Try this book, see if you agree.
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: No one has satirized New York society quite like Dawn Powell, and in this classic novel she turns her sharp eye and stinging wit on the literary world, and "identifies every sort of publishing type with the patience of a pathologist removing organs for inspection."
Frederick Olliver, an obscure historian and writer, is having an affair with the restively married, beautiful, and hugely successful playwright, Lyle Gaynor. Powell sets a see-saw in motion when Olliver is swept up by the tasteless publishing tycoon, Tyson Bricker, and his new book makes its way onto to the bestseller lists just as Lyle's Broadway career is coming apart.
"For decades Dawn Powell was always just on the verge of ceasing to be a cult and becoming a major religion." -- Gore Vidal
My Review: My mother loved Dawn Powell, I think in part because Powell was tart-tongued and in part because no woman in Powell's books gets away with anything...but none of them seems to have any regrets about it.
We had old editions of her novels around, and when I found them and read them, I was surprised by the fact that my religious nut Fascist mama had time for this New York socialite world. When questioned, Mama said, "I grew up, daaaaaaahhhhhliiiin. You might, too. Your books won't, though."
They haven't. I wonder what makes someone hold onto a past they don't like anymore...gosh, can't think why anyone would do that....
So I read this book in the 1990s when Gore Vidal had started making noise about Powell and how very good she was. Steerforth Press, does it even exist now?, put several of the books out (this was after their big success with Mister Sandman, a seriously creepy book that I quite liked) for our book circle. A lot of people found it pretty dated then, what with adultery being gasp-worthy and playwrights being famous for non-musicals and men writing history books getting major publishing contracts.
I found Lyle and Frederick fresh as Vermont cream: She's bored by her life because she's never found a reason not to be, takes up with a man she doesn't much like because he's *completely* unlike the men she's around all the time, and when he becomes like those men, the usual thing happens. Bikini Atoll blows up. I mean, don't hydrogen bombs blow island paradises to kingdom come when you reject your adulterous lovers?
Powell is one witty broad, with a tongue so sharp Dorothy Parker was jealous and afraid. Her writing is **STILL** not yodeled about and caroled over, and I do not for the life of me understand why. It's caustically funny, it's well-constructed in the plot department, and it revels in its wickedness. It's what David Lodge and Christopher Buckley can only aspire to: Good and humorous.
Try this book, see if you agree.
November 17, 2015
Dr. Johnson and Mr. Pope would've been proud of Dawn Powell – she does satire that well!
Solid writing here but not experimental - a conventional format with a beginning, middle, and end. Surprisingly, despite such readability; Dawn Powell is vastly underread, the reason being she alienated the fiction-consuming middle class by exposing & mocking their venal lives. In her own words:
"You both confuse and anger people if you satirize the middle class. It is considered jolly and good-humored to point out the oddities of the poor or of the rich, but I go outside the rules with my stuff because I can't help believing that the middle class is funny, too*."
Going by this book alone, I shd say nothing escapes Dawn Powell's critical eye!
Edmund Wilson described her novels as being on par with those of Anthony Powell, Evelyn Waugh, and Muriel Spark– I'm not that familiar with these writers though GG had kind words for Spark. I kept thinking of her in terms of Jane Austen – only more trenchant, psychologically more astute, and just as witty.
Austen was hampered by the conventional times but Dawn Powell pulls no punches, yet she does it with charm and humour.
The Locusts Have No King is at heart a love story with a strong focus on the publishing industry & all the wheeling-dealing that is part of it.
Powell writes with the panache of an industry insider who has the double (dis)advantage of being an outsider as well, peripheral as she always remained to mainstream success – as Gore Vidal succinctly expressed it in his 1987 NYRB essay** : "For decades Dawn Powell was always just on the verge of ceasing to be a cult and becoming a major religion."
Thus you get both an involved and a detached view, the touching honesty of which proves she is writing about not just a way of life that was known to her but also a reality that was lived through and it adds rich poignancy to the text.
Several times the thought processes of Frederic Olliver, the writer-hero, seem a wry commentary on Powell's writing career itself:
"He beamed at Frederick with the honest affection one could feel toward a man who will never be a rival, a man one is sure will never be anything but a distinguished failure, a man one can praise freely and honestly without danger of sending him zooming up the ladder ahead of oneself (...) the repeated protestations of reverence for such scholarship, such fine prose; the lamentations over the vulgarity of the reading public, the noble statements that the dissemination of such work would constitute their life work had they only their own tastes to think of; then the solemn reminder of their practical duties as publisher and as teacher-critic to the underpriviledged public (which had a right to "escape reading" regardless of literary standards), and to the masses whose tastes must be fed; finally,the mournful decision that the luxury of pandering to their fine personal predilections must be denied them; the Olliver book must be put aside if not abandoned altogether to some more selfish and fortunate firm."
In ISoLT, Proust had shown that our impressions of people are never static - they keep changing depending on what facets we are privy to at a given moment thus the concept of personality remains in a flux – Powell here has shown the same thing with that problematic emotion called Love – love in itself may remain constant but the myriad states of mind associated with it are spread across a continuum of —devotion, longing, narcissism, envy, jealousy, suspicion, insecurity, anger, frustration, rage, vindictiveness, hostility, pettiness, repentance, loss, sacrifice, and so on.
The love, loyalty, and endurance of Frederic & Lyle are tested against the currents of fluctuating fortunes. In the manner of Shakespearean romantic comedies, the characters are chastened by trials and tribulations, often self-destructive in designs of their own making, they come to a better & more realistic understanding & acceptance of themselves & of each other. This is how Powell describes the theme:
" The theme...deals with the disease of destruction sweeping through our times...each person out to destroy whatever valuable or beautiful thing life has. The moral is...one must cling to whatever remnants of love, friendship, or hope above and beyond reason that one has, for the enemy is all around ready to snatch it."
The arguements that have been labelled against this book include that it's "dated", "what with adultery being (no longer) gasp-worthy," etc.
By that logic, why read history? It's so dated! And where in the world would people openly indulge in adulterous behaviour if they had a lot to lose? In my part of the world, adultery could land you in jail! So yes, it still remains gasp-worthy.
Powell's 1940s New York doesn't seem dated to me 'cause the social climbing, name-dropping, relationships of convenience that she merrily exposes, remain very much entrenched in our hypocritical societies everywhere. As she astutely observes:
"...the truth must be that one never changed, one was merely found out."
You'll enjoy this book if you like crisp, clear writing, loaded with wit & humour, a well-constructed plot, and three-dimensional characters.
Those looking for *Experimental* prose will be disappointed - ask yourself is that the only function of fiction? The first thing I look for is, is the writer able to do justice to their subject? How well does the concept translate onto the page? How well are they able to tell their stories - and boy, she spins a darned good yarn!
Powell had had a tough life & in her usual take-it-in-my-stride manner, she bore her personal and professional disappointments with fortitude. But don't read her out of pity, she deserves respect; every bit of it.
(*) from the introduction to the book.
(**) http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi...
Solid writing here but not experimental - a conventional format with a beginning, middle, and end. Surprisingly, despite such readability; Dawn Powell is vastly underread, the reason being she alienated the fiction-consuming middle class by exposing & mocking their venal lives. In her own words:
"You both confuse and anger people if you satirize the middle class. It is considered jolly and good-humored to point out the oddities of the poor or of the rich, but I go outside the rules with my stuff because I can't help believing that the middle class is funny, too*."
Going by this book alone, I shd say nothing escapes Dawn Powell's critical eye!
Edmund Wilson described her novels as being on par with those of Anthony Powell, Evelyn Waugh, and Muriel Spark– I'm not that familiar with these writers though GG had kind words for Spark. I kept thinking of her in terms of Jane Austen – only more trenchant, psychologically more astute, and just as witty.
Austen was hampered by the conventional times but Dawn Powell pulls no punches, yet she does it with charm and humour.
The Locusts Have No King is at heart a love story with a strong focus on the publishing industry & all the wheeling-dealing that is part of it.
Powell writes with the panache of an industry insider who has the double (dis)advantage of being an outsider as well, peripheral as she always remained to mainstream success – as Gore Vidal succinctly expressed it in his 1987 NYRB essay** : "For decades Dawn Powell was always just on the verge of ceasing to be a cult and becoming a major religion."
Thus you get both an involved and a detached view, the touching honesty of which proves she is writing about not just a way of life that was known to her but also a reality that was lived through and it adds rich poignancy to the text.
Several times the thought processes of Frederic Olliver, the writer-hero, seem a wry commentary on Powell's writing career itself:
"He beamed at Frederick with the honest affection one could feel toward a man who will never be a rival, a man one is sure will never be anything but a distinguished failure, a man one can praise freely and honestly without danger of sending him zooming up the ladder ahead of oneself (...) the repeated protestations of reverence for such scholarship, such fine prose; the lamentations over the vulgarity of the reading public, the noble statements that the dissemination of such work would constitute their life work had they only their own tastes to think of; then the solemn reminder of their practical duties as publisher and as teacher-critic to the underpriviledged public (which had a right to "escape reading" regardless of literary standards), and to the masses whose tastes must be fed; finally,the mournful decision that the luxury of pandering to their fine personal predilections must be denied them; the Olliver book must be put aside if not abandoned altogether to some more selfish and fortunate firm."
In ISoLT, Proust had shown that our impressions of people are never static - they keep changing depending on what facets we are privy to at a given moment thus the concept of personality remains in a flux – Powell here has shown the same thing with that problematic emotion called Love – love in itself may remain constant but the myriad states of mind associated with it are spread across a continuum of —devotion, longing, narcissism, envy, jealousy, suspicion, insecurity, anger, frustration, rage, vindictiveness, hostility, pettiness, repentance, loss, sacrifice, and so on.
The love, loyalty, and endurance of Frederic & Lyle are tested against the currents of fluctuating fortunes. In the manner of Shakespearean romantic comedies, the characters are chastened by trials and tribulations, often self-destructive in designs of their own making, they come to a better & more realistic understanding & acceptance of themselves & of each other. This is how Powell describes the theme:
" The theme...deals with the disease of destruction sweeping through our times...each person out to destroy whatever valuable or beautiful thing life has. The moral is...one must cling to whatever remnants of love, friendship, or hope above and beyond reason that one has, for the enemy is all around ready to snatch it."
The arguements that have been labelled against this book include that it's "dated", "what with adultery being (no longer) gasp-worthy," etc.
By that logic, why read history? It's so dated! And where in the world would people openly indulge in adulterous behaviour if they had a lot to lose? In my part of the world, adultery could land you in jail! So yes, it still remains gasp-worthy.
Powell's 1940s New York doesn't seem dated to me 'cause the social climbing, name-dropping, relationships of convenience that she merrily exposes, remain very much entrenched in our hypocritical societies everywhere. As she astutely observes:
"...the truth must be that one never changed, one was merely found out."
You'll enjoy this book if you like crisp, clear writing, loaded with wit & humour, a well-constructed plot, and three-dimensional characters.
Those looking for *Experimental* prose will be disappointed - ask yourself is that the only function of fiction? The first thing I look for is, is the writer able to do justice to their subject? How well does the concept translate onto the page? How well are they able to tell their stories - and boy, she spins a darned good yarn!
Powell had had a tough life & in her usual take-it-in-my-stride manner, she bore her personal and professional disappointments with fortitude. But don't read her out of pity, she deserves respect; every bit of it.
(*) from the introduction to the book.
(**) http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi...
May 2, 2023
If the bluebird of happiness were offered to them they would still be searching for the prefabricated duplicate, forever prizing the mechanical simulation to the unpriced, unmotored, therefore cheap reality.
A savage satire of New York’s society in the aftermath of World War II and at the start of the Cold War, just before the first nuclear tests on Bikini Atoll. Dawn Powell has been called The Best American Writer You’ve Never Heard Of , and I believe my reaction to this first novel by her that I’ve read stands proof of the claim: never even heard her name until one of my friends on Goodreads mentioned it, yet I was thrilled from the first page to the last by Powell’s wit, by her sharp observations and by her passionate portrait of both the city and of its inhabitants. I can’t remember right now the last time I’ve bookmarked a novel with so many memorable quotes... and the last time I enjoyed writing a review more.
The Gaynor plays, they chanted, were gay, bitter, revealing studies of sensitive moderns, true pictures of modern society. How would they know, Lyle had queried, except that they recognized the sets from the last play of modern society?
Who are these people, and why did Powell feel the need to compare them with locusts? Publishers, art critics, promoters, rich sponsors, authors, bar flies and nighthawks, society hangers-on and predatory single men/women on the prowl. Why was my laughter at their antics tinged with despair, and why are these characters still familiar to a modern reader? The title is borrowed from the Book of Proverbs, but a more detailed explanation is given in the afterword, from the author’s personal diaries:
In 1943 she wrote that she wanted to write a novel about “The Destroyers – that cruel, unhappy, ever-dissatisfied group who feed on frustrations ... If people are in love, they must mar it with laughter, if people are laughing, they must stop it with ‘Your slip is showing’. They are in a permanent prep school where they perpetually haze each other. They destroy their own happiness by being ashamed of whatever brings it; they want to be loved but are unloving; they want to destroy but be themselves saved.”
Dawn Powell was a country girl from Ohio, bringing with her to the metropolis a fresh eye and a no-nonsense attitude to social status and to intellectual pretensions. In this novel, she uses several outsiders with a similar background as our guides through this jungle [Frederick Olliver, Lyle Gaynor, Judy Dahl], and pits them against a veritable menagerie of ‘Destroyers’ or locusts.
Powell anchors the various sketches from both high society and from the bohemian lifestyle of Greenwich Village with a Love Story, found and lost among the fake idols venerated by the social gurus of New York.
Frederick Olliver, a reclusive author of academical studies about history and art, is in love with Lyle Gaynor, a highly successful but married playwright. They are both enchanted by the other, but also very discreet and both critical of the company the other keeps: Frederick of Lyle’s social obligations, and Lyle of Frederick’s reclusive and shy preferences.
He wondered if the day would ever come when he would cease being the stranger, the solitary wanderer, the observer without passport or knowledge of the language. Like a shy but curious nursery child in adult wonderland, he peered into Americas whose blue neon sign cast a warning green shadow on each new arrival.
Frederick, who shares an apartment with another bachelor named Murray, struggles to make ends meet and resents the demands imposed by Lyle’s parties. Yet he feels unable to deny her. Lyle, in her turn, takes her illicit lover for granted and rarely tries to accommodate his requests for privacy. She would like instead to launch Frederick into a more sparkling social role.
Be on time. Dress. Be discreet for these are friends of my husband. Please take home all unescorted ladies, pay for the nightcap in the fine cafe they select, use your breakfast money on a check-room tip, walk home when your funds give out. All for love. All for the incurable need of seeing Lyle whenever and wherever he could.
The crisis in the relationship, and the first chapter of the novel, starts in bar on the Avenue of Americas, seen here as the [wobbling] axis around which city life really revolves. Everything starts or ends here, on Rubberleg Square , as the place is aptly named in the novel.
A gentleman in somebody else’s hat balances himself carefully down Avenue of the Americas, as if it was a slack wire; his head thrust forward like a hen’s, his arms flapping, his knees buckling, he tacks from curb to curb and finally flutters into the safe cove of “BAR” like a clumsy pigeon, enfeebled lady behind him by her arm; her pocketbook swings from a long strap in a wide vigorous circle and slaps passers-by with a rhythmic thud.
Frederick hops from bar to bar, looking for his friend Murray to borrow some money in order to attend one of Lyle’s socials, when he gets hooked by a young girl with a social agenda of her own. This Dodo is pretty and she knows it, and she is ready to use her assets to get into the highest available social circles. [ Flaunting of luxuries was testimony to superior power over men, medals of practical victories. ] Naive Frederick does not know how to deny Dodo, so they end up going to the party together. Trouble with Lyle is the natural result of this misunderstanding, an avoidable break-up that will be compounded by an unexpected literary prize that Frederick will soon win, his entry ticket to all those circles he claimed to despise.
Meanwhile, Lyle is frustrated by the absence of her secret lover, but too proud to admit she had ignored his pleas in the past. Her own fraught marriage with an abusive cripple is thrown into new light by Frederick’s sharp observations.
In his presence Lyle felt herself and often saw others wilt, as if his greed for life left no oxygen for anyone else. [...] Poor Allan, with his savage efforts to balance his frustrations by frustrating others.
Allan is a prime example of what Powell likes to call locusts. He co-writes his plays with his wife Lyle, yet insults her and her friends with gusto and with vicious putdowns, claiming all the credit for their success in the theatre. He is just one of many such examples from the artistic, advertising and publishing world. One more quote should be enough to illustrate this point, this time from an agent who books other artists:
“The reason I never went in for painting is that I’d want to do it so much better than anyone else,” he stated once. “My great ambition has always prevented me from doing anything.”
This cheap, fake simulation of professional success and of social stature is extended to the realm of education and of love. The impoverished Frederick, before his prize money, is forced to take a job at the grandly titled League for Cultural Foundation, teaching Contemporary Novel, International Literary Progress, Classic Reading, and Poetry: a thinly disguised money making enterprise selling Culture to the masses.
The four hours had seemed a small price to pay for a roof over his head with the rest of the week free for his own work, but after a while he had a desperate feeling that he was being bribed to distribute cancer.
Once again, Powell is better than me at driving the point across, so I will use another of her quotes to exemplify:
“They have introduced a course in Fast Reading at the League,” Edwin Stalk maliciously interrupted. “Bricker starts them off by showing them how to keep their minds a blank, and they can read like the wind, unless, of course, thinking sets in. How do you cure that, Bricker?”
In the Love department, I have to admire the way Dawn Powell is equally adept at both the male and the female point of view, at both the progressive /feminist perspective and at the traditional gender roles of her period. Another Ohio refugee in New York, another poor artist who somehow wins the jackpot, is Frederick’s counterpart on the other side of the barricade:
She was a self-contained, honorable young woman, who had no hesitancy in admitting she had been the pursuer, dogging Murray’s footsteps, earnestly trying to prove her usefulness until he allowed her his bed and the privilege of forgiving his other affairs, looking after his clothes and room and hangovers, cooking for his friends when he permitted, and waiting for his anecdotes about parties with other women.
I was tempted initially to dismiss this Judy Dahl as a doormat and a blight on women’s lib agenda, but she sort of becomes an alternative to the ‘locusts’ lifestyle in New York, a breath of fresh air and of common sense, in particular when thrown to the lions in the salons of several trendsetters [or what we now call influencers] : Caroline Drake, Lorna Leahy, Gerda, Dodo, etc. Caroline and Lorna in particular are illustrative of the novel’s agenda about the corrupting power of modern life. Both successful single women, they are a couple of ‘cougars’ who consume men for breakfast then complain bitterly and drunkenly that they are mistreated.
“I don’t know why it is men never get insulted till they’ve finished your dinner or your liquor or your pocketbook.”
They and Gerda, Murray’s former wife, [ She was born a salonniere. She could, she laughingly confessed, turn a seat on a Greyhound bus or a roomette on a train into her own salon at the drop of an olive. ] are part of the bohemian lowlifes that Lyle’s highbrow friends look down upon, but she is willing to visit with them in order to get a chance to win Frederick back from Dodo’s young clutches.
He had criticized her friends relentlessly and in the end she was seeing them as he saw them – smug, dead, selfish, opportunistic, hollow ... She tried to see the superiority of these friends of his with his eyes as well, doing her best to keep down the impression that she had seen, heard, and discarded all this before in her life-time.
Highbrow locusts are not much different from lowbrow destroyers in Powell’s eyes, and she usually finds something outrageously funny and/or bawdy to make her point, yet moments of surprising depth and emotion are what brings this novel to my favorites shelf.
The joke was always on women, Lyle thought. Their lives have become too complicated to be managed either by reason or instinct. Each path blocks every other path and goals are reached only by blind luck. It seemed to her that all the problems of her own life were rushing together in a wild dance, riding her like trolls, their clamor drowning any single voice.
Where can you find your anchor, your safe harbour in this world gone crazy with surface glitter and with fake idols? We already know the answer is Love, but the path there is a twisted and painful one.
They went into fresh gales of laughter. Frederick swore he’d never laughed so hard in his life. His heart was broken, Mrs. Glay’s heart was broken, Judy’s was probably about to be broken – in fact the world was so full of jokes the three friends were kept laughing far into the night.
At the risk of putting in spoilers, in a novel that is more about a panoramic portrait of a time and place, I would say that I rooted for the outsiders to not give up to the pressure from the ‘locusts’, for Frederick and Lyle and Judy to hold on to their humanity and to their integrity, for them to salvage something from the fallout of crushed dreams while an atom bomb ominously explodes somewhere in the Pacific.
Dawn Powell made me think they deserve it:
In a world of destruction one must hold fast to whatever fragments of love are left, for sometimes a mosaic can be more beautiful than an unbroken pattern.
>>><<<>>><<<
I left out about half of my bookmarks in the text, hoping to not dilute too much the main storyline in my review, but I would be loath to loose them to my overcrowded and increasingly unreliable neurons. These quotes don’t work so well out of context, but I hope they will contribute to my effort to illustrate the sharp wit and the wild imagination of the author:
“A young girl’s a hell of a responsibility and when you try to pry ‘em loose it’s like getting chewing-gum off your shoe.”
Frederick did not say that for his part it was more like trying to catch an eel in the open sea without even liking eels. [two bachelors commiserating in a bar about their young paramours]
“Mr. Olliver,” she breathed, “you’re a genius.”
Art is a cigarette ad, then, Frederick mused, literature is a soap opera, integrity is getting your claptrap done by pay-day so you can take some trollop to some clip joint where she can double-cross you. [the author, after his unexpected social climb]
... if Sex is dragging you down on the one hand you need Brains to bring up the balance. Start an intellectual revolution, Benedict. Let Strafford’s be our leaders, show us the way out of materialism and nationalism, give us a new philosopher or a poet – something to build a new culture upon. [a brainstorming session at the publisher Strafford]
Usually an amiable fellow, the recent twists of fate kept Murray with a constant supply of chips on his shoulder and plenty of time to keep them polished. His room-mate’s bright prospects made him feel even more wronged.
Frederick was discovering that no matter how generous friends are in your failure, they do not easily forgive your success. [on friendship]
She could not have understood his horror at the salaams the city made, not to Mind but to the negotiable evidence of it. The shameless reverence for notoriety of any caliber, criminal or cultural, was frightening, the more so because he could so easily not have been its object. It was his luck, not his work that was esteemed; [a visionary take on our current celebrity driven culture]
Dodo had been revenging herself by poking out ‘Cha Ta’ on the keys with one finger as if she was prodding a drowsy trick elephant that might bellow satisfactorily with due stimulation. This display of musicianship failing to attract attention she added vocal power not at all deterred by ignorance of the lyrics. [Dodo among women, without a man to hunt]
“The Buzzard is the best flier. [...] A bird always looking out for himself can fly straight and fast and never gets lost.” [another possible title for the novel]
>>><<<>>><<<
“Until I met you,” Frederick said, “I thought of myself as a kind of spectator at all human antics, never a participant. You were like the beautiful prima ballerina who stopped in the ballet to pull me into the carnival.” [a favourite saved for the end, to wash away the bitter aftertaste of chewing on one too many locusts]
August 30, 2017
Dawn Powell writes of New York City at its very peak, post-WWII, mid-20th century. Skyscrapers, badass automobiles, Radio City Music Hall, cafeterias. I swear that when you read this book, you'll hear the loud honking of the yellow taxicabs, you'll see the bright flashing neon lights of Broadway, you'll feel the surge of humanity walking with you on an overflowing sidewalk.
Isn't that what a well-written book accomplishes? The feat of placing you in a time and place you were born too late to experience, yet factors into your memory, as though you really were there. When I worked in a bookstore as a teenager, customers would purchase this title about once a week. This was long after she was dead, yet she still had a following. One day, I finally sat down and read this book, and I understood why.
New York, New York. The innocence has faded away, but the Metropolis Myth lives on.
Book Season = Spring (consume the earth)
Isn't that what a well-written book accomplishes? The feat of placing you in a time and place you were born too late to experience, yet factors into your memory, as though you really were there. When I worked in a bookstore as a teenager, customers would purchase this title about once a week. This was long after she was dead, yet she still had a following. One day, I finally sat down and read this book, and I understood why.
New York, New York. The innocence has faded away, but the Metropolis Myth lives on.
Book Season = Spring (consume the earth)
February 26, 2019
Dawn Powell is wonderful, with her biting wit and trenchant examination of a certain segment of society, in this case literary and artistic types in New York in the immediate post war period. There are the successful, people on the make, hangers on, and drifters; the wealthy and the broke, the highbrow and the low, their relationships in flux, brought together by geography, drink and a deep fear of being alone. There's an overarching plot to pull it all together and as much resolution as is credible. Great stuff.
April 18, 2018
Dawn Powell, sentimentalist turned satirist, sent up literary pretensions, wannabes and hangers-on in this unsparing look at Manhattan in 1946. Her gimlet-eyed mode of character analysis will remind some people of Jane Austen, perhaps more of Sinclair Lewis. Since this novel is remarkably free of token "good people" or "moral bellwethers," her Juvenalian outlook, and possibly the carry-over of the biblical "locust" allusion, bring to mind Nathanael West's THE DAY OF THE LOCUST (1939) as well.
People either like this kind of satire or they don't; I do, though this is not my favorite Dawn Powell novel. Still, it has its merits, not the least of which the fact that in the middle of all the excoriation, Powell somehow retains a sensitive writerly touch. I read the red-white-and-blue cover version displayed here (actually based on a real Forties artwork), which provided too much information about the plot on its back cover, yet failed to number individual chapters or provide a table of contents. This means that people like me who participated in a group read may have to number each chapter with a pencil, and browsing the blurb on the back is to be avoided for those who don't want a spoiler ruining the goings-on. The good news: those who take a shine to the novels of Dawn Powell can find most of them gathered into two Library of America volumes.
People either like this kind of satire or they don't; I do, though this is not my favorite Dawn Powell novel. Still, it has its merits, not the least of which the fact that in the middle of all the excoriation, Powell somehow retains a sensitive writerly touch. I read the red-white-and-blue cover version displayed here (actually based on a real Forties artwork), which provided too much information about the plot on its back cover, yet failed to number individual chapters or provide a table of contents. This means that people like me who participated in a group read may have to number each chapter with a pencil, and browsing the blurb on the back is to be avoided for those who don't want a spoiler ruining the goings-on. The good news: those who take a shine to the novels of Dawn Powell can find most of them gathered into two Library of America volumes.
August 16, 2015
Dawn Powell is one of those authors I have found myself collecting over the years, but hadn't read yet, and wasn't sure when to start... or where to start. At the beginning of her bibliography? At the end, and work backwards? Start with her diaries or her fiction?
I started reading this right after finishing Dorothy Parker. They have the same initials! They're also known for their sarcasm and sardonic humor. Except, for some reason, Parker gained popularity and Powell... well, not many people have heard of Dawn Powell. Therein lies my fascination in her writing.
The story takes place in New York City, just like Dorothy Parker's stories. Powell writes about New York society with the same sort of disdain as Parker did - this sort of feeling that while they're making fun of the people in this society, they are just as much a part of it and dislike themselves for being there as well. From what I understand, however, Parker never wrote a novel, and Powell did, so there's the difference. Dawn Powell is sort of the novel-version of Dorothy Parker.
In this novel we have Frederick Olliver, a sort of wiener of a character, a writer busy hobnobbing with other writers and Hollywood sorts. But that wouldn't make an interesting enough story, right, so there are affairs and relationship problems and awkward interactions. This makes it a more relatable story to the common reader, because not many of us are hobnobbing with any of these people normally. But we do know about relationships, and Dawn Powell cracks relationships on the head. I found myself nodding at the sage-like references Powell made on occasion to how some people are. I appreciated a lot of her positions on friendships and, well, people in general.
It just might have been too soon after Dorothy Parker. I thought it would be good to get two different views on a similar time in New York history, but they were a little too similar and it just made me feel sad. (Note: It's also the middle of August and hot and miserable out, and this time of year always colors how I feel about what I'm reading.)
I will say after reading Dorothy and Dawn, I want a fucking highball.
I gave The Portable Dorothy Parker 3 stars as well. I would still say, however, I liked Dawn Powell's approach better than Parker's. I will still read more of Powell's books, and I know I will probably enjoy them more. This just might not have been the right place to start in her writing.
I started reading this right after finishing Dorothy Parker. They have the same initials! They're also known for their sarcasm and sardonic humor. Except, for some reason, Parker gained popularity and Powell... well, not many people have heard of Dawn Powell. Therein lies my fascination in her writing.
The story takes place in New York City, just like Dorothy Parker's stories. Powell writes about New York society with the same sort of disdain as Parker did - this sort of feeling that while they're making fun of the people in this society, they are just as much a part of it and dislike themselves for being there as well. From what I understand, however, Parker never wrote a novel, and Powell did, so there's the difference. Dawn Powell is sort of the novel-version of Dorothy Parker.
In this novel we have Frederick Olliver, a sort of wiener of a character, a writer busy hobnobbing with other writers and Hollywood sorts. But that wouldn't make an interesting enough story, right, so there are affairs and relationship problems and awkward interactions. This makes it a more relatable story to the common reader, because not many of us are hobnobbing with any of these people normally. But we do know about relationships, and Dawn Powell cracks relationships on the head. I found myself nodding at the sage-like references Powell made on occasion to how some people are. I appreciated a lot of her positions on friendships and, well, people in general.
It just might have been too soon after Dorothy Parker. I thought it would be good to get two different views on a similar time in New York history, but they were a little too similar and it just made me feel sad. (Note: It's also the middle of August and hot and miserable out, and this time of year always colors how I feel about what I'm reading.)
I will say after reading Dorothy and Dawn, I want a fucking highball.
I gave The Portable Dorothy Parker 3 stars as well. I would still say, however, I liked Dawn Powell's approach better than Parker's. I will still read more of Powell's books, and I know I will probably enjoy them more. This just might not have been the right place to start in her writing.
February 2, 2022
Like with most of the books i read, i had no idea what this was going in. Although set in the 1940’s rather than ‘20s it has the same sort of empty, contemptible, worthless characters as the Great Gatsby, a novel i absolutely loathe.
Although in Gatsby defence i was force to study it at school which was never going to endear it to me even if it wasn’t terrible. This book however does have a much larger cast and the main two characters do at least have some talents.
Still, i prepared myself to actively hate this one. However the multiple character perspectives and weaving of thread upon thread of this tapestry of life drew me in kicking and screaming.
By the 3/4 mark this one was actually 4-stars, it did keep going though a bit more than i felt it needed to given the effect it was trying to achieve.
Overall, very well plotted, with a remarkably even handed approach to both its male and female characters. Very much not my preferred genre, time period or aesthetics but compelling even for me for a time.
Although in Gatsby defence i was force to study it at school which was never going to endear it to me even if it wasn’t terrible. This book however does have a much larger cast and the main two characters do at least have some talents.
Still, i prepared myself to actively hate this one. However the multiple character perspectives and weaving of thread upon thread of this tapestry of life drew me in kicking and screaming.
By the 3/4 mark this one was actually 4-stars, it did keep going though a bit more than i felt it needed to given the effect it was trying to achieve.
Overall, very well plotted, with a remarkably even handed approach to both its male and female characters. Very much not my preferred genre, time period or aesthetics but compelling even for me for a time.
May 25, 2018
Dawn Powell is probably one of the best authors you have never read. And, until a couple weeks ago, she was one of the best authors I had never read. Thanks to my book group, I have finally changed my status for the better. I have been advised to read her time and again. And Powell is an Ohio author who was born in a little town not far from the farm country where my mom grew up. She attended college in a town I often frequent for work. She spent time visiting her sister in the Cleveland area, around the corner from where I used to live. Her style was witty, cosmopolitan and extremely funny when it wasn't pointing out the sadder aspects of our human experience. In retrospect, I am astonished that I allowed myself to miss out on Dawn Powell for so many years in my reading life.
Luckily, I now have several titles to binge-read.
Never has there been a better time for me to hide in the safe embrace of the The American Century and bask in the warm glow of striving sophistication mid 20th century New York imbues. I am weary of the 21st century with it's green screen special effects extravaganzas...dystopia tropes...and all action all the time plots. I am worn out with the hucksters and despots and 'reality' stars and memes and tweets and the cultural ADHD it has given me. I am taking the Cure. This year it is back to the book and my craving is for older selections. There is solace for me in this slower time. It is the world I hide in after negotiating yet another day in the chaos and continual crisis of Today.
Yet in reading authors like Dawn Powell, I need not castigate myself for completely fleeing our ugly realities. Nor should I berate myself for casting the decades prior to my birth in too forgiving of a light. Powell was decades ahead of her time in her characters and observations.
The Locusts have No King is a New York story set in the post war glory of America's crowning jewel at the apex of America's heyday. It is too easy for me to view that world as a continuous loop of elegance, prosperity, culture and style. And Powell allows me some room to fantasize in my mind about the Dior that the women were possibly wearing...to smell the Ambush and the not-yet-tainted scent of Chesterfields...to listen to the jazz in the piano bars and to gaze at the lights flowing endlessly down Broadway. In Locusts, I am allowed to spend time with city people and eavesdrop on their literary chatter and malicious gossip. Powell provides all the elements of my favorite hideout: the 20th century urban fantasy.
And then, delightedly, she pokes that bubble with sharp needles! These New York sophisticates are also sad and depressing -- or comically ridiculous. And I am forced to remember that these people who populate the Manhattan of her late 1940s tragicomedy of manners are also hucksters. They are also reality stars. They are also petty social tyrants and caricatures of the urban 'types' they try so hard to sell to themselves and to others. The characters in this novel were very contemporary. In 1948, Dawn Powell was already doing Mad Men. She was already writing Sex and the City.
The plot hinges on the triangle formed by central characters, Frederick Olliver and Lyle Gaynor and Lyle's disabled (and it is implied, impotent) husband, Allan. Frederick and Lyle are lovers, but only under the strict rules and regulations imposed on their relationship by Lyle. Frederick, although feeling no conflict about cuckolding Allan, chafes against the 'crumbs' he receives from Lyle. He is forced to attend parties with her friends (whom he loathes) in her more elevated sphere where he remains always the Extra Man in the outer circle amidst his social betters. Lyle and Allan have forged a fairly successful partnerships as playwrights, although their marriage is a sham. Former actor, Allan, mainly lends his name and drops anodyne ideas for plays that Lyle shapes into more worthy productions. Lyle, guilty in her role as faithless wife, atones for the love she finds elsewhere with Frederick by propping up Allan psychologically and keeping their career and reputation afloat. It is an uneasy alliance at best and cracks are certain to form.
Frederick begins the novel as a sour person who resents lesser minds who have achieved what he has not (money and publication.) His difficulty in shopping his academic study of the Medieval period is an ongoing frustration, along with the leash Lyle has put upon him in their public lives. Fate intervenes when a publisher, needing to salvage the reputation of his imprimatur after the notorious success of a sex-drenched potboiler, approaches Frederick to manage a magazine called Haw. In exchange for selling out to this low brow enterprise, the publishing company will publish Frederick's book. On the outs with Lyle and becoming embroiled with another woman -- the insufferable gold digger appropriately named 'Dodo'-- Frederick takes the deal.
Tasting the fleeting joys of publication and social invitations along with the novelty of a new sexual conquest, Frederick emerges from his shell. At the same time, Lyle's life begins to contract as she realizes how miserable she is with Allan and the stress of holding things together bears down.
In between there are many bar encounters, parties, scenes in bachelor caves, and some blisteringly funny dialogue. Satellite characters are punchy slices of life and balance the permutations of Frederick and Lyle's society romance.
Dawn Powell combines the razor tongue of Dorothy Parker with the sly elegance of a Myrna Loy/William Powell farce, but also includes some introspection and melancholy....a perfect cocktail for a literary soiree.
Luckily, I now have several titles to binge-read.
Never has there been a better time for me to hide in the safe embrace of the The American Century and bask in the warm glow of striving sophistication mid 20th century New York imbues. I am weary of the 21st century with it's green screen special effects extravaganzas...dystopia tropes...and all action all the time plots. I am worn out with the hucksters and despots and 'reality' stars and memes and tweets and the cultural ADHD it has given me. I am taking the Cure. This year it is back to the book and my craving is for older selections. There is solace for me in this slower time. It is the world I hide in after negotiating yet another day in the chaos and continual crisis of Today.
Yet in reading authors like Dawn Powell, I need not castigate myself for completely fleeing our ugly realities. Nor should I berate myself for casting the decades prior to my birth in too forgiving of a light. Powell was decades ahead of her time in her characters and observations.
The Locusts have No King is a New York story set in the post war glory of America's crowning jewel at the apex of America's heyday. It is too easy for me to view that world as a continuous loop of elegance, prosperity, culture and style. And Powell allows me some room to fantasize in my mind about the Dior that the women were possibly wearing...to smell the Ambush and the not-yet-tainted scent of Chesterfields...to listen to the jazz in the piano bars and to gaze at the lights flowing endlessly down Broadway. In Locusts, I am allowed to spend time with city people and eavesdrop on their literary chatter and malicious gossip. Powell provides all the elements of my favorite hideout: the 20th century urban fantasy.
And then, delightedly, she pokes that bubble with sharp needles! These New York sophisticates are also sad and depressing -- or comically ridiculous. And I am forced to remember that these people who populate the Manhattan of her late 1940s tragicomedy of manners are also hucksters. They are also reality stars. They are also petty social tyrants and caricatures of the urban 'types' they try so hard to sell to themselves and to others. The characters in this novel were very contemporary. In 1948, Dawn Powell was already doing Mad Men. She was already writing Sex and the City.
The plot hinges on the triangle formed by central characters, Frederick Olliver and Lyle Gaynor and Lyle's disabled (and it is implied, impotent) husband, Allan. Frederick and Lyle are lovers, but only under the strict rules and regulations imposed on their relationship by Lyle. Frederick, although feeling no conflict about cuckolding Allan, chafes against the 'crumbs' he receives from Lyle. He is forced to attend parties with her friends (whom he loathes) in her more elevated sphere where he remains always the Extra Man in the outer circle amidst his social betters. Lyle and Allan have forged a fairly successful partnerships as playwrights, although their marriage is a sham. Former actor, Allan, mainly lends his name and drops anodyne ideas for plays that Lyle shapes into more worthy productions. Lyle, guilty in her role as faithless wife, atones for the love she finds elsewhere with Frederick by propping up Allan psychologically and keeping their career and reputation afloat. It is an uneasy alliance at best and cracks are certain to form.
Frederick begins the novel as a sour person who resents lesser minds who have achieved what he has not (money and publication.) His difficulty in shopping his academic study of the Medieval period is an ongoing frustration, along with the leash Lyle has put upon him in their public lives. Fate intervenes when a publisher, needing to salvage the reputation of his imprimatur after the notorious success of a sex-drenched potboiler, approaches Frederick to manage a magazine called Haw. In exchange for selling out to this low brow enterprise, the publishing company will publish Frederick's book. On the outs with Lyle and becoming embroiled with another woman -- the insufferable gold digger appropriately named 'Dodo'-- Frederick takes the deal.
Tasting the fleeting joys of publication and social invitations along with the novelty of a new sexual conquest, Frederick emerges from his shell. At the same time, Lyle's life begins to contract as she realizes how miserable she is with Allan and the stress of holding things together bears down.
In between there are many bar encounters, parties, scenes in bachelor caves, and some blisteringly funny dialogue. Satellite characters are punchy slices of life and balance the permutations of Frederick and Lyle's society romance.
Dawn Powell combines the razor tongue of Dorothy Parker with the sly elegance of a Myrna Loy/William Powell farce, but also includes some introspection and melancholy....a perfect cocktail for a literary soiree.
April 17, 2018
I like Dawn Powell's abilities as a writer, but I didn't care too much for the subject matter in this satirical send-up of post-war New York and the literary scene. And, indeed, it was difficult for me to keep in mind this was post-war--WWII, that is, because there seemed to be a 1930s Hollywood screwball comedy feel to the entire thing.
Maybe Powell rates more stars for how accurately she captured this life--that would just be a guess on my part, as I've never lived it--but another comparison that popped into my mind a few times was the Steve Martin film, L.A. Story, with its exposure of the phoniness of the people and their concerns about anything other than themselves.
Anyway, The Locusts Have No King is nominally the story of Lyle Gaynor (a woman) and Frederick Olliver, and their on-, off-, on-again romance, but I think that's simply the structure Powell uses to eviscerate the particular literary scene, circa 1946. These people seemed very believable to me, as well as thoroughly unlikable, which is not necessarily important--I've certainly enjoyed books with unpleasant characters before. But there is a cattiness and a slick, glossy tempo to the way these people interact with one another that is often the literary equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard to me. That's good writing, to be able to duplicate that, because when I run into this kind of interaction in real life, then it becomes the social equivalent of nails on a chalkboard.
I've seen Powell compared to Jane Austen a few times--I think I can understand the comparison, but Powell is much more fierce than Austen, I think, and interested in causing more than just superficial wounds with the blade of her pen. But, even with all the criticisms I've listed, I'd still give Powell another chance. Although I didn't find much to laugh out loud about, there were some grim smiles when Powell turned in a neat character sketch/evisceration in just a few sentences. I'd like to see what she does with other subject matter.
Maybe Powell rates more stars for how accurately she captured this life--that would just be a guess on my part, as I've never lived it--but another comparison that popped into my mind a few times was the Steve Martin film, L.A. Story, with its exposure of the phoniness of the people and their concerns about anything other than themselves.
Anyway, The Locusts Have No King is nominally the story of Lyle Gaynor (a woman) and Frederick Olliver, and their on-, off-, on-again romance, but I think that's simply the structure Powell uses to eviscerate the particular literary scene, circa 1946. These people seemed very believable to me, as well as thoroughly unlikable, which is not necessarily important--I've certainly enjoyed books with unpleasant characters before. But there is a cattiness and a slick, glossy tempo to the way these people interact with one another that is often the literary equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard to me. That's good writing, to be able to duplicate that, because when I run into this kind of interaction in real life, then it becomes the social equivalent of nails on a chalkboard.
I've seen Powell compared to Jane Austen a few times--I think I can understand the comparison, but Powell is much more fierce than Austen, I think, and interested in causing more than just superficial wounds with the blade of her pen. But, even with all the criticisms I've listed, I'd still give Powell another chance. Although I didn't find much to laugh out loud about, there were some grim smiles when Powell turned in a neat character sketch/evisceration in just a few sentences. I'd like to see what she does with other subject matter.
May 1, 2025
The locusts have no king, yet go they forth, all of them by bands. - Proverbs 30: 27If this had been my first Dawn Powell experience, I might not have gotten more than halfway. Not that it's a bad novel (necessarily) but it seems that I've read most of her novels - and she has certainly written better books.
Some of them - titles like 'A Time to be Born', 'The Golden Spur', 'The Wicked Pavilion', her short story collection 'Sunday, Monday, and Always' - are quite remarkable. I suppose it was more out of respect for her unique talent that I prodded myself to stay with 'TLHNK' through to its conclusion.
It's certainly the novel fixed with her best title, borrowed from the Bible. Part of me thinks that she found that partial quote so irresistible that she couldn't stop herself from attempting a work that would live up to it. It *does* do that. Her ungoverned characters cluster, swarm, act as though migratory and, in their own way, can - in larger numbers - feel like a plague.
~ even though they're merely ambitious New Yorkers basking in post-WWII's upward mobility. In Powell's jaundiced view - one that, here, is more pronounced than usual - these people (even the less insidious ones) are not unlike insects.
In other Powell novels, when she is dealing with certain types that she's apparently not that fond of, the narrative will be balanced by the inclusion of persons it's either easier to root for or are generally more palatable.
Not here. I suppose the worst that can be said about the protagonist Frederick Oliver is that he's chronically weak-minded - but, at the same time, with all of his intelligence he's not at all given to self-reflection. He's book-smart, not life-smart.
Almost to a person, those surrounding Frederick overthink, overreact and overdo. They're nervous types who tend to fall victim to their own insecurities. In plumbing their emotional terrain, Powell overdoes as well, often repeating what is already understood.
In reading of the foibles of these characters, I felt like I was hearing variations of the Smokey Robinson classic, 'The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game'.
Though I was ready to throw in the towel midway into the read, it was at just about exactly that point (surprisingly) that whatever genuine power was hiding within the novel decided to assert itself. The second half of the book holds a number of very well-written scenes, unfortunately dovetailed with more of the overwritten ones. Still, it was nice to notice that the more effective Powell was in there somewhere.
Overall, the effect is one of an author simply trying too hard - when less (but more of Powell's trademark humor) might have been more.
Even if you have become a real fan of the author's work, 'TLHNK' is not (I think) all that satisfying. What works here has too much of a fight against what doesn't. It's so clear that the author really doesn't like what (and who) she is documenting so intricately that the salvation of the conclusion doesn't really convince.
But the last thing I would want to do is steer people away from Dawn Powell. When she's on all cylinders, she's excellent. ~ certainly a standout in her generation of writers. I've mentioned some of her best novels earlier in this assessment. By all means, give her some of your time and attention!
July 25, 2017
A Novel Of Fallen Ideals
The title of Dawn Powell's 1948 novel is derived from the Book of Proverbs: "The locusts have no king, yet they go forth all of them by bands." The title suggests a certain degree of smallness, conformity, and crowd (swarm) mentality -- a lack of vision and a falling off of what creative life could be. I thought invariably of Nathanael West's "Day of the Locust" set in Hollywood, besides New York City that other center of American dreams. West's novel is a novel of irony which depicts conformity, crassness, and lovelessness in a manner that does resemble Powell's novel. There are parallels in Powell's book with many other novels as well.
"The Locusts have no King" is set in New York City between the period of the end of WW II and the first test nuclear explosion on Bikini Atoll in 1947. The novel is a story of fallen ideals and of the difficult effort required to keep and recover at least some sense of one's ideals. The ideals in question are primarily those of true love and passion and also those of following and remaining faithful to one's dream -- in the case of this book, the dream of writing
The story is told in Powell's sharply ironical voice. Some readers find her voice cool, brittle and impersonal. But I got involved with the main characters and found it moving.
The central character of the book is Frederick, a serious writer and scholar (not attached to any university) who studies medieval history and writes books and articles which few people read. For many years, he has been carrying on an affair with a woman named Lyle, who writes plays together with her crippled husband. Frederick's head is termed by what we today would call a bimbo appropriately named Dodo. ("Pooh on you"!, she says, throughout the book) At the same time, Frederick's financial fortune turns when his publisher prevails upon him to edit a periodical appropriately named "Haw" which becomes a commercial success.
The main plot of the story involves Frederick's attempt to understand and put his love life and his writing life back together. Powell develops this basically serious story is an atmosphere of superficiality. The story moves forward in the bars and pubs of New York City and in party scenes among those on the make. Powell is a master at describing the bars and the streets of New York and in depicting party chatter. The book is full of tart, cutting one-liners and of aphorisms. The theme of fallen ideals in love and thinking is carried through in the settings of the story. Powell has a deeply ambivalent attitude, I think, towards these settings. She clearly knows them well.
This is not a book to be read for the author's skill in plotting. The book is cluttered with many characters and incidents. Powell is a wonderful prose stylist in this book as in her other novels that I have read. In this book I found places where the prose as well as the characters were cluttered and laid on too thick. The strength of the book lies in its description of New York and in Powell's description of how ideals and visions can come short. I found this poignantly displayed.
Powell's own description of "The Locusts have no King" offers valuable insight into what the book has to offer. She wrote:
"The theme ... deals with the disease of destruction sweeping though our times... each person out to destroy whatever valuable or beautiful thing life has... The moral is ... one must cling to whatever remnants of love, friendship, or hope above and beyond reason that one has, for the enemy is all around ready to snatch it."
"The Locusts have no King" is an excellent novel by a deservedly rediscovered American writer.
Robin Friedman
The title of Dawn Powell's 1948 novel is derived from the Book of Proverbs: "The locusts have no king, yet they go forth all of them by bands." The title suggests a certain degree of smallness, conformity, and crowd (swarm) mentality -- a lack of vision and a falling off of what creative life could be. I thought invariably of Nathanael West's "Day of the Locust" set in Hollywood, besides New York City that other center of American dreams. West's novel is a novel of irony which depicts conformity, crassness, and lovelessness in a manner that does resemble Powell's novel. There are parallels in Powell's book with many other novels as well.
"The Locusts have no King" is set in New York City between the period of the end of WW II and the first test nuclear explosion on Bikini Atoll in 1947. The novel is a story of fallen ideals and of the difficult effort required to keep and recover at least some sense of one's ideals. The ideals in question are primarily those of true love and passion and also those of following and remaining faithful to one's dream -- in the case of this book, the dream of writing
The story is told in Powell's sharply ironical voice. Some readers find her voice cool, brittle and impersonal. But I got involved with the main characters and found it moving.
The central character of the book is Frederick, a serious writer and scholar (not attached to any university) who studies medieval history and writes books and articles which few people read. For many years, he has been carrying on an affair with a woman named Lyle, who writes plays together with her crippled husband. Frederick's head is termed by what we today would call a bimbo appropriately named Dodo. ("Pooh on you"!, she says, throughout the book) At the same time, Frederick's financial fortune turns when his publisher prevails upon him to edit a periodical appropriately named "Haw" which becomes a commercial success.
The main plot of the story involves Frederick's attempt to understand and put his love life and his writing life back together. Powell develops this basically serious story is an atmosphere of superficiality. The story moves forward in the bars and pubs of New York City and in party scenes among those on the make. Powell is a master at describing the bars and the streets of New York and in depicting party chatter. The book is full of tart, cutting one-liners and of aphorisms. The theme of fallen ideals in love and thinking is carried through in the settings of the story. Powell has a deeply ambivalent attitude, I think, towards these settings. She clearly knows them well.
This is not a book to be read for the author's skill in plotting. The book is cluttered with many characters and incidents. Powell is a wonderful prose stylist in this book as in her other novels that I have read. In this book I found places where the prose as well as the characters were cluttered and laid on too thick. The strength of the book lies in its description of New York and in Powell's description of how ideals and visions can come short. I found this poignantly displayed.
Powell's own description of "The Locusts have no King" offers valuable insight into what the book has to offer. She wrote:
"The theme ... deals with the disease of destruction sweeping though our times... each person out to destroy whatever valuable or beautiful thing life has... The moral is ... one must cling to whatever remnants of love, friendship, or hope above and beyond reason that one has, for the enemy is all around ready to snatch it."
"The Locusts have no King" is an excellent novel by a deservedly rediscovered American writer.
Robin Friedman
October 11, 2015
This is another in my series of underappreciated classics this year, and I ended up with decidedly mixed feelings about this Dawn Powell novel.
On the one hand, there is no doubting her gifts as a writer and as a satirist. There is almost no part of post-WWII New York society that doesn't get skewered or at least nicked by her sardonic wit and her exploration of the mostly self-absorbed maneuverings of the men and women who mix business and the arts and drinking (lots and lots of drinking).
But holding me back is the fact that this novel revolves around a relationship whose difficulties never made sense to me. The beautiful, accomplished Lyle Gaynor is the brains behind a successful playwrighting duo, and remains with her invalid husband, Allan, for reasons of pity and professional success. Meanwhile, Frederick Olliver, a shy, intellectual author whose publisher initially holds him in contempt, is madly in love with her, and is forced to go to parties she hosts that he doesn't want to attend just so he can be with her.
So far so good. But then, Frederick meets one of the most irritating ingenues I've ever encountered, the constantly simpering, vacant, highly insecure Dodo, a sort of latter day flapper who hangs around in bars waiting for men to entertain her and pay for her favors and who scoffs at anything that doesn't involve celebrity or self advancement. Why Frederick falls for Dodo and becomes a slave to her whims is never clear, and then of course he believes Lyle no longer cares for him when in fact she never stops thinking about him.
I won't give away the ending, but suffice to say that this flawed and very long rough patch between Lyle and Frederick is the heart of this novel, and it never quite worked for me. In the meantime, though, Powell manages to satirize modern office life, publishing for the masses, the ignorance of those with inherited wealth, the caustic relationships of single women and a host of other foibles.
It's as though a really interesting party is being held in a room with very ugly furniture. You're fascinated by the spectacle, but somewhat disgusted by the decor.
On the one hand, there is no doubting her gifts as a writer and as a satirist. There is almost no part of post-WWII New York society that doesn't get skewered or at least nicked by her sardonic wit and her exploration of the mostly self-absorbed maneuverings of the men and women who mix business and the arts and drinking (lots and lots of drinking).
But holding me back is the fact that this novel revolves around a relationship whose difficulties never made sense to me. The beautiful, accomplished Lyle Gaynor is the brains behind a successful playwrighting duo, and remains with her invalid husband, Allan, for reasons of pity and professional success. Meanwhile, Frederick Olliver, a shy, intellectual author whose publisher initially holds him in contempt, is madly in love with her, and is forced to go to parties she hosts that he doesn't want to attend just so he can be with her.
So far so good. But then, Frederick meets one of the most irritating ingenues I've ever encountered, the constantly simpering, vacant, highly insecure Dodo, a sort of latter day flapper who hangs around in bars waiting for men to entertain her and pay for her favors and who scoffs at anything that doesn't involve celebrity or self advancement. Why Frederick falls for Dodo and becomes a slave to her whims is never clear, and then of course he believes Lyle no longer cares for him when in fact she never stops thinking about him.
I won't give away the ending, but suffice to say that this flawed and very long rough patch between Lyle and Frederick is the heart of this novel, and it never quite worked for me. In the meantime, though, Powell manages to satirize modern office life, publishing for the masses, the ignorance of those with inherited wealth, the caustic relationships of single women and a host of other foibles.
It's as though a really interesting party is being held in a room with very ugly furniture. You're fascinated by the spectacle, but somewhat disgusted by the decor.
September 9, 2016
"Jay McInerney meets Carrie Bradshaw for the Mad Men era" would surely be the publicist's pitch if Dawn Powell's weighty novel about the Greenwich Village literary whirl of the 40s were first published today. The description is not inaccurate: Powell prefigures SATC's breathless, enthusiastic chronicling of the cocktail-swilling tribes of Manhattan, and her writing is drenched in a face-disfiguringly acid wit so brutal even McInerney would blush.
But this satire offers something more profound -- and thus, I would argue, more difficult to enjoy -- than the literary bubble gum of those two pop philosophers. Powell's understanding of human behavior is so thorough, so flawless, and so beautifully surgical it's unmatched in almost anything I've ever read. Seriously, it's intimidating how insightful and also rapier-funny she can be. But I still only gave this 3 stars because that's all she wrote (literally); there's no character or plot worth latching on to here to sustain you through the endless parade of deep, dark insights into the mind(lessness) of the modern man. To explain it in quantities the Locust characters would understand: these 27 chapters are like drinking 27 bone-dry martinis in a row -- sounds great and delicious for the first few, but it just gets exhausting and tedious and leaves you with a splitting headache after a while. Thankfully, as others have said, the ending is very satisfying, and breathes some necessary air into the stultifying world of the novel, and of your thoughts.
But this satire offers something more profound -- and thus, I would argue, more difficult to enjoy -- than the literary bubble gum of those two pop philosophers. Powell's understanding of human behavior is so thorough, so flawless, and so beautifully surgical it's unmatched in almost anything I've ever read. Seriously, it's intimidating how insightful and also rapier-funny she can be. But I still only gave this 3 stars because that's all she wrote (literally); there's no character or plot worth latching on to here to sustain you through the endless parade of deep, dark insights into the mind(lessness) of the modern man. To explain it in quantities the Locust characters would understand: these 27 chapters are like drinking 27 bone-dry martinis in a row -- sounds great and delicious for the first few, but it just gets exhausting and tedious and leaves you with a splitting headache after a while. Thankfully, as others have said, the ending is very satisfying, and breathes some necessary air into the stultifying world of the novel, and of your thoughts.
August 20, 2019
Dawn Powell’s (1896-1956) work as a novelist is still almost totally unknown, both in America and elsewhere. When you point your poisoned pen at the likes of society eminences grises like Clare Boothe Luce & Co., as she did in “A Time To Be Born” (1942), you might as well write your own literary obituary, – and voila, she was “disappeared.” Her memory was slightly revitalized when in the late 1980s Gore Vidal published an essay in the New York Review of Books praising her and noting that she had been sadly forgotten. Her literary work can mostly be divided into two distinct kinds of output: one dedicated to the novels of her own native rural Ohio (and especially how much she wanted to hightail it the hell out of there), and the second a series of deliriously scabrous, witty novels aimed at the bohemian literary set of Greenwich Village in the aftermath of World War II, to which she would eventually move and never leave.
“The Locusts Have No King” belongs distinctly to the latter group, and Powell’s preoccupation is her distinct distaste for the major characters involved, with a large slice of their meretricious private lives thrown in for good measure. Frederick Olliver is an academic writer who seems to be a specialist in something vaguely related to medieval history, and consequently ekes out of a subsistence living writing scholarly monographs, refusing to aid in the production of anything that might be of wider interest to a popular reading public. He’s having an ongoing affair with Lyle Gaynor, a successful playwright who is herself already married to a man, though his confinement to a wheelchair has her left with certain itches unscratched. All the locusts seem to be buzzing along nicely until Dodo shows up, a shameless boor and unrepentant minx who will do anything to further herself among Frederick and Lyle’s high society friends. When Dodo tries to increasing insert herself into Frederick’s private life, she only finds herself being used as a pawn in the attempts of others to further their own ambitions.
There are some aspects of the novel that run counter to it being read as a satire, one of which is that there’s hardly a likeable person in the entire thing. What makes you laugh is Powell’s cool, objective contempt for her characters, not so much the characters themselves. Frederick comes off as an aloof, condescending pendant and Lyle as his unlikely, bubbly confidant. Another is the rather niche areas of the publishing industry that Powell is trying to portray, which are now either anachronisms or will not register with the reader unfamiliar with the publishing world. Somehow, however, it all manages to come together in a seamless way that bears few signs of its age, leaving no motivation unturned and no romantic decision unquestioned.
The setting of the novel, every bit Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall decamping from a cab into the comforts of an anonymous dive bar (an image particularly evoked in Chapter One), makes the reading experience a weird but alluring hybrid of noir and literary satire. But somehow, despite the very dated imagery noir films are soaked in, the only thing that give Powell’s characters away as products of the 1940’s is the rare neologism or malapropism that has since disappeared from common usage. Archetypes are archetypes for a reason, though: they are timeless, and just as funny when lampooned today as they were seventy years ago.
What little Dawn Powell is still in print seems to be there by the good graces of a house by the name of Steerforth Press, a publishing house which truly seems to be doing yeoman’s work. I know that there are dozens of such small houses engaged in such passion projects, but it’s nice to be able to call one out, especially when they’ve gone out of their way to re-introduce readers to a superb American writer who should never have needed to be re-introduced in the first place. I’m so glad, and I know that many other readers will be, that Steerforth has decided that she is deserves a place among their publications.
“The Locusts Have No King” belongs distinctly to the latter group, and Powell’s preoccupation is her distinct distaste for the major characters involved, with a large slice of their meretricious private lives thrown in for good measure. Frederick Olliver is an academic writer who seems to be a specialist in something vaguely related to medieval history, and consequently ekes out of a subsistence living writing scholarly monographs, refusing to aid in the production of anything that might be of wider interest to a popular reading public. He’s having an ongoing affair with Lyle Gaynor, a successful playwright who is herself already married to a man, though his confinement to a wheelchair has her left with certain itches unscratched. All the locusts seem to be buzzing along nicely until Dodo shows up, a shameless boor and unrepentant minx who will do anything to further herself among Frederick and Lyle’s high society friends. When Dodo tries to increasing insert herself into Frederick’s private life, she only finds herself being used as a pawn in the attempts of others to further their own ambitions.
There are some aspects of the novel that run counter to it being read as a satire, one of which is that there’s hardly a likeable person in the entire thing. What makes you laugh is Powell’s cool, objective contempt for her characters, not so much the characters themselves. Frederick comes off as an aloof, condescending pendant and Lyle as his unlikely, bubbly confidant. Another is the rather niche areas of the publishing industry that Powell is trying to portray, which are now either anachronisms or will not register with the reader unfamiliar with the publishing world. Somehow, however, it all manages to come together in a seamless way that bears few signs of its age, leaving no motivation unturned and no romantic decision unquestioned.
The setting of the novel, every bit Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall decamping from a cab into the comforts of an anonymous dive bar (an image particularly evoked in Chapter One), makes the reading experience a weird but alluring hybrid of noir and literary satire. But somehow, despite the very dated imagery noir films are soaked in, the only thing that give Powell’s characters away as products of the 1940’s is the rare neologism or malapropism that has since disappeared from common usage. Archetypes are archetypes for a reason, though: they are timeless, and just as funny when lampooned today as they were seventy years ago.
What little Dawn Powell is still in print seems to be there by the good graces of a house by the name of Steerforth Press, a publishing house which truly seems to be doing yeoman’s work. I know that there are dozens of such small houses engaged in such passion projects, but it’s nice to be able to call one out, especially when they’ve gone out of their way to re-introduce readers to a superb American writer who should never have needed to be re-introduced in the first place. I’m so glad, and I know that many other readers will be, that Steerforth has decided that she is deserves a place among their publications.
October 26, 2022
Great book, if it weren't a bit dated it'd be 5*. Dawn Powell is/was a lost treasure. My previous read was "A Time to Be Born," which was published earlier in the 40's. This one is a bit harder-hitting in its scathing look at Manhattan literary culture in the late 40's. Frederick seems to be based in the author herself. The main feature of the book is not so much the rickety plot, but the many long-paragraph-based rants the author composes for our entertainment and edification. The antics of the supporting characters, especially the crazed/innocent Dodo provide further pungent alcohol-based amusement.
- Seems like I've encountered that line about the women who "won" WWII somewhere before.
- I LOVE Ms. Powell's dreamy book titles.
- My copy(an inter-library loan from the Portland(Me) public library)is rife with boo-boos. Really needed better proof-reading.
- A Nabokov comparison... congenial but sharp-tongued observational prose. The Veronica Lake-haired lady in that awesome bar scene near the end - I've been verbally accosted by listeners while talking to a friend at/in a bar. One of those intruders was Howard(Butch)Komives, a basketball notable of the 1960's, who interrupted a friend and me to tell us we didn't know what we were talking about. He was the proprietor of the Boulder bar where we were sitting (Tom Horn's), and(unbeknownst to him I'm sure) the $ sponsor of our softball team. JERK!
Finished last night as Lyle and Frederick stumble back into each others arms. Reminded me of the episode of "Cheers" when marriage/relationship expert John Cleese makes the mistake of telling Sam and Diane they ought not be together. They proceed to hound him for a different verdict to the point where he utters one of my all-time favorite "Cheers" lines: "I think I hate them." Ms Powell probably could have filled another 300 pages with her apex snark, but I guess enough is enough.
- 4.5* rounds down to 4*. If Goodreads offered 6 stars(as it should do) this would be a perfect 5*.
- Bruce Gentry = 1940's pulp fiction flyboy hero.
- Another book about publishing hi-jinks = Martin Amis' "The Information"
- Can we compare Dawn Powell favorably to Vladimir Nabokov in the congenial smart-alecky prose department?
- Marion Harris = pioneering white singer of the blues and jazz during the 20's.
- Seems like I've encountered that line about the women who "won" WWII somewhere before.
- I LOVE Ms. Powell's dreamy book titles.
- My copy(an inter-library loan from the Portland(Me) public library)is rife with boo-boos. Really needed better proof-reading.
- A Nabokov comparison... congenial but sharp-tongued observational prose. The Veronica Lake-haired lady in that awesome bar scene near the end - I've been verbally accosted by listeners while talking to a friend at/in a bar. One of those intruders was Howard(Butch)Komives, a basketball notable of the 1960's, who interrupted a friend and me to tell us we didn't know what we were talking about. He was the proprietor of the Boulder bar where we were sitting (Tom Horn's), and(unbeknownst to him I'm sure) the $ sponsor of our softball team. JERK!
Finished last night as Lyle and Frederick stumble back into each others arms. Reminded me of the episode of "Cheers" when marriage/relationship expert John Cleese makes the mistake of telling Sam and Diane they ought not be together. They proceed to hound him for a different verdict to the point where he utters one of my all-time favorite "Cheers" lines: "I think I hate them." Ms Powell probably could have filled another 300 pages with her apex snark, but I guess enough is enough.
- 4.5* rounds down to 4*. If Goodreads offered 6 stars(as it should do) this would be a perfect 5*.
- Bruce Gentry = 1940's pulp fiction flyboy hero.
- Another book about publishing hi-jinks = Martin Amis' "The Information"
- Can we compare Dawn Powell favorably to Vladimir Nabokov in the congenial smart-alecky prose department?
- Marion Harris = pioneering white singer of the blues and jazz during the 20's.
September 3, 2012
There are a set of authors whose characters are cherished playmates in the author's novels, saying witty bon mots or overcoming sturdy obstacles the author has constructed in their way. Then there are authors who have characters that are created with a sneer on the author's face. Authors I have read that tend to do this include Muriel Spark and Vladimir Nabokov, and now Dawn Powell.
The publishing world after World War II must have been a backbiting hothouse - a hothouse complete with swarming locusts to feed, denigrate and joke off of everything and everybody. There is the critic who pretends to know everything and everybody (that hasn't changed...), the playwright who hasn't written a solitary scene that his wife did, but gets all the credit, the catty commercial artists simultaneously superior and inferior to any fine artists out there, and the advertising jingle writer who lives off the phrase "Let Me Give You a Light". That particular phrase must be understood ironically as anybody who shines a light in this novel is quickly swarmed.
The literary scene in the post WWII era must have ripe for satire, and if I would have read this book during that time I am sure I would have loved it. Now in our post literate times it strikes me as sad - as I'm sure Powell did at the time. Because there was all this energy and money flowing into books, magazines and criticism, but it wasn't flowing to her. I mean, somebody could make a living then as a short story writer! Imagine that absurdity if you will in our times. Though I do hold out a sliver of hope for the e-readers in that avenue.
The publishing world after World War II must have been a backbiting hothouse - a hothouse complete with swarming locusts to feed, denigrate and joke off of everything and everybody. There is the critic who pretends to know everything and everybody (that hasn't changed...), the playwright who hasn't written a solitary scene that his wife did, but gets all the credit, the catty commercial artists simultaneously superior and inferior to any fine artists out there, and the advertising jingle writer who lives off the phrase "Let Me Give You a Light". That particular phrase must be understood ironically as anybody who shines a light in this novel is quickly swarmed.
The literary scene in the post WWII era must have ripe for satire, and if I would have read this book during that time I am sure I would have loved it. Now in our post literate times it strikes me as sad - as I'm sure Powell did at the time. Because there was all this energy and money flowing into books, magazines and criticism, but it wasn't flowing to her. I mean, somebody could make a living then as a short story writer! Imagine that absurdity if you will in our times. Though I do hold out a sliver of hope for the e-readers in that avenue.
February 10, 2019
This is my second reading. Having just finished Tim Page’s biography of Dawn Powell and his book of her letters, I have a better frame of reference for the milieu Powell created for this book.
I can see the soon-to-be-demolished Cafe Lafayette Powell loved so much recreated sardonically as the New Place bar. She writes of a “stout lady” patron who raises “a lorgnette to the pictures above the bar, stating to no one in particular that the proprietor was to be congratulated on maintaining the quaint atmosphere of old New York”. Hah!
Her protagonists, Lyle Gaynor, a playwright, and Frederick Olliver,a writer, are clearly based on the author herself, each suffering the trials and tribulations she endured in both endeavors.
My favorite chapter “... the foul weather friends in fair weather ...” recounts Frederick’s chagrin at finally and at long last having his book published only to have his roommate, Murray Cahill, spoil it for him. Dawn Powell is a brilliant wit and her turn of phrase is laugh out loud funny as she writes of Frederick’s attempts to mollify Murray by “...feed(ing) him delectable tales of hard luck everywhere...”. Another “hah”!
I know professional reviewers consider this book satire, and it probably is, but I read it as the tale of her own difficult marriage to her advertising copywriter husband Joe Gousha, told through the equally complicated love story of Lyle and Frederick’s affair.
I loved the story and all of the characters, including Dawn Powell’s New York.
I can see the soon-to-be-demolished Cafe Lafayette Powell loved so much recreated sardonically as the New Place bar. She writes of a “stout lady” patron who raises “a lorgnette to the pictures above the bar, stating to no one in particular that the proprietor was to be congratulated on maintaining the quaint atmosphere of old New York”. Hah!
Her protagonists, Lyle Gaynor, a playwright, and Frederick Olliver,a writer, are clearly based on the author herself, each suffering the trials and tribulations she endured in both endeavors.
My favorite chapter “... the foul weather friends in fair weather ...” recounts Frederick’s chagrin at finally and at long last having his book published only to have his roommate, Murray Cahill, spoil it for him. Dawn Powell is a brilliant wit and her turn of phrase is laugh out loud funny as she writes of Frederick’s attempts to mollify Murray by “...feed(ing) him delectable tales of hard luck everywhere...”. Another “hah”!
I know professional reviewers consider this book satire, and it probably is, but I read it as the tale of her own difficult marriage to her advertising copywriter husband Joe Gousha, told through the equally complicated love story of Lyle and Frederick’s affair.
I loved the story and all of the characters, including Dawn Powell’s New York.
April 18, 2018
The Cats out of the Bag:
And that's Robert Benchley on the far left, in "The Stork Club," but not necessarily in The Locusts Have No King. There may be quite a few portraits of famous, or once famous people here. This is a roman a clef for which the clef is missing.
I think people who complain that Dawn Powell is 'dated' aren't really saying that the picture of the Stork Club era, or the "Had Enough?" era- New York immediately after WW II- isn't interesting, but that many parts of this book would need a historian's annotations. They've lost some of their 'bite.'
That said, there was a lot to like in this book. I was a little surprised to learn, in the little bio at the back of the book, that Dawn Powell was born in 1897 (although this is off by a year, according to other sources), and thus wrote it as she was turning fifty. If someone had asked her "Why are you so cynical?," she might have replied, "Because I'm no spring chicken, dear."
Thanks to the GR group that got me past the middle chapters (I have a tendency to put books down even when I'm enjoying them immensely), and thanks to the buddies who 'pre-approved' this review, so to speak. "Sometimes a broken mosaic is more beautiful than a smooth pattern."
And that's Robert Benchley on the far left, in "The Stork Club," but not necessarily in The Locusts Have No King. There may be quite a few portraits of famous, or once famous people here. This is a roman a clef for which the clef is missing.
I think people who complain that Dawn Powell is 'dated' aren't really saying that the picture of the Stork Club era, or the "Had Enough?" era- New York immediately after WW II- isn't interesting, but that many parts of this book would need a historian's annotations. They've lost some of their 'bite.'
That said, there was a lot to like in this book. I was a little surprised to learn, in the little bio at the back of the book, that Dawn Powell was born in 1897 (although this is off by a year, according to other sources), and thus wrote it as she was turning fifty. If someone had asked her "Why are you so cynical?," she might have replied, "Because I'm no spring chicken, dear."
Thanks to the GR group that got me past the middle chapters (I have a tendency to put books down even when I'm enjoying them immensely), and thanks to the buddies who 'pre-approved' this review, so to speak. "Sometimes a broken mosaic is more beautiful than a smooth pattern."
December 22, 2024
This writer was completely unknown to me when I started reading this book. I came away from the book with an incredibly vivid picture in my mind of the "party scene" of another era - New York socialites of the mid-20th century. Powell's portrayal of her characters shows a remarkable skill in observing and interpreting the many delusions, mind games and inner conflicts common in people who are unfulfilled in life. There is something twisted and menacing about all her characters, yet they all come across as familiar and sympathetic, often even noble, at the same time. It's hard to root for the hero/heroine because they are intentionally presented as so flawed. Icons of contradiction, they pursue both the right things and the wrong things with the same fervor. One of Powell's philosophical "hooks" is this idea of suffering for something noble, such as love. In correlation, those who suffer are vindictively compelled to make others suffer too. Everyone is always using everyone else in a grand bid for self-advancement and mutual commiseration. And for Powell, I think one major point is despite our desires and efforts, life is never as rewarding as we hope it to be.
April 27, 2020
Not sure what I want to say about this. Powell is easy to read. But generally, its not easy to read books where all of the characters are unlikeable. Usually, in that sort of book, the author can carry through things by exceptionally good style, or by the force of ideas. In that sense, this book seems like a slimmed down, comprehensible version of Gaddis' The Recognitions. Everyone is a fraud, and the author takes glee in skewering them. But whereas The Recognitions overwhelms you with its greatness (which in itself is a problem), this book aggressively underwhelms you with its shallowness. It's surface and wit, and enjoyable wit at that, but that's about it. It does a great job at showing the banality of urbane New York literary society in the fifties. I suppose if I could connect with that world, it would be a hoot. But I don't connect to that world, and Powell has not given me any reason that I should want to. Thus, the book feels to me clever, very well written, and at the same time distant and stilted. It's too bad, because I think Powell is a talented, witty and graceful writer. But I wish (apologies to Gertrude Stein) that there was more of a there there.
July 18, 2018
While I'm reading this book, my vision seems to lose all color and I see everything in black and white. Its a flashback to mid-century New York with its literary and publishing scene, something that was popular in older films, either Gary Grant screwball comedies or some of the lesser known B grade romances. If I knew more about it, I'm sure I could recognize the real life individuals that are used as fictional characters.
The story is a simple one, men and women making a mess of their relationships interspersed with parties and bars where large amounts of alcohol was consumed and gossip exchanged. The book is very episodic, it jumps around quite a bit. An interesting read, my family's mostly west coast or small town folk, so I've only experienced this New York through film.
The story is a simple one, men and women making a mess of their relationships interspersed with parties and bars where large amounts of alcohol was consumed and gossip exchanged. The book is very episodic, it jumps around quite a bit. An interesting read, my family's mostly west coast or small town folk, so I've only experienced this New York through film.
November 9, 2012
Powell's later novels only increase in complexity, skill in handling multiple characters and subplots, and, her forte, long-ish descriptive paragraphs. This book is ridiculous and hilariously funny, and the punch that Powell manages at the end, putting this all-too human comedy in a wider sociopolitical post-World War II context with the detonation of the atom bombs on the Bikini atoll is amazing and moving. What a tremendous talent Dawn Powell possessed.
November 2, 2015
Frederick Olliver and Lyle Gaynor are the love story interests in this New York City satire of literary society. Ms. Powell seems to find her characters most interesting when they are unhappy, and she seems to enjoy skewering the different types of society hanger-ons that are part of that society. This was biting satire mixed with some pathos.
September 7, 2019
I the plot wasn't earth shattering but it was a compelling read. Powell's writing is beautiful in a 1950's way. I recommend this book. Anyone who wants to read a tale of the New York's 20th century literati social scene will enjoy this book. The Locust have No Kong may be fiction but I doubt that it's not far from the truth.
Read
November 8, 2025The high points are just as bright as Mary McCarthy, reminiscent of the first section of Americana by DeLillo, or even Dickens, but the love triangle sections are sort of wooden, like a copybook Proust. The free-indirect doesn't really flow. She's funny as hell though so I'll try a few more.
Read
January 6, 2023A New York comedy of manners set in the Forties, it concerns a married couple comprised of a famous playwright and her husband, an academic who labors at his specialty in obscurity. The husband, while successful in this discipline, works away in his obscure scholarly endeavors, known by virtually no one save for a handful of peers while the wife is the toast of Broadway, blessed with hit after hit, loads of favorable reviews and admiring tidbits in all the newspapers. Fate , or some other cruel force that loves to upset the expectations of the smug and the arrogant, works so that the husband gains great notoriety for the research he's been pouring over for years, even breaking through to what was then the mainstream media, while the wife must deal with a box office bomb and negative reviews, items that have her reputation sliding quickly down the social ladder. Powell is one of the better comic writers we've had --a spikier Edith Wharton, shall we say, a funnier Thomas Hardy (think of Mayor of Casterbridge)--who provides momentum, atmosphere and rich, crackling dialogue in this many -charactered satire. This would be the sort of novel Tom Wolfe has been trying to write for years. More about Wolfe-as-novelist, he lacks the precision of detail, character quirks, and reveals himself to be rather drifting plotter. The arcs of his novels lack the efficient forward movement of Powell, who has the sense along with the afore mentioned Hardy that fate , triggered by seemingly insignificant gestures, remarks or stray, condemning thoughts, results in a reversals of fortunes, either comic or tragic. We are fortunate Powell opts for the comic. Wolfe piles it on , sentence after sentence, clause after clause, until he suffocates the good ideas he might have hard. Powell keeps us intrigued as to how much deeper the characters in question can deepen the hole they're in.We have here a situation where the fortunes of famous wife and unknown husband are suddenly and realistically reversed, a turn that reveals the shallow relations and loyalties, tied as they are to one's fortunes. Or lack of them.
October 29, 2019
It took me a surprisingly long time to slog through this, though I began to enjoy it more towards the end. As fiction, it unfortunately falls short. The characters are largely hard to bond with, and in most cases, even to like. Their relationships defy credibility. Dodo Brennan is one of the least likable women I have encountered in fiction, and Frederick's fascination with her is something which doesn't seem possible. And the central characters brood constantly, which gets tedious.
On the one hand, Powell is a pretty good writer. Her eye for detail is impressive, and her description of social events makes the reader feel as if they had attended them. Some of the peripheral characters are brilliantly (well, also scathingly) depicted, especially Gerda Cahill and the brief appearance of Dodo's mother. But oh, those long paragraphs -- some run for well over a page of small print.
There are two plot lines. The one which describes how publishing worked in post-War New York City is fun, and effectively satirical. But the main story, about the relationship between Frederick and Lyle, does not work. I just can't see people reacting as they do. This story reminded me of Hollywood movies from that era, glitzy and superficial.
The aspect of the book I most enjoyed is a return to the city in which I grew up. 1948 is before my memory, but what I remember from a decade later is described in detail. Advertising agencies (Ivy Lee, J W Thompson, BBD&O), department stores (Gimbel's, Altman's), FAO Schwarz, lending libraries, Bendix washing machines, Al Capp, the New York Mirror and a lot more. There is some good social and cultural history here, and that comes close to making the book worth reading.
I'm glad I read this, I guess, but I am undecided if I will explore this author further.
On the one hand, Powell is a pretty good writer. Her eye for detail is impressive, and her description of social events makes the reader feel as if they had attended them. Some of the peripheral characters are brilliantly (well, also scathingly) depicted, especially Gerda Cahill and the brief appearance of Dodo's mother. But oh, those long paragraphs -- some run for well over a page of small print.
There are two plot lines. The one which describes how publishing worked in post-War New York City is fun, and effectively satirical. But the main story, about the relationship between Frederick and Lyle, does not work. I just can't see people reacting as they do. This story reminded me of Hollywood movies from that era, glitzy and superficial.
The aspect of the book I most enjoyed is a return to the city in which I grew up. 1948 is before my memory, but what I remember from a decade later is described in detail. Advertising agencies (Ivy Lee, J W Thompson, BBD&O), department stores (Gimbel's, Altman's), FAO Schwarz, lending libraries, Bendix washing machines, Al Capp, the New York Mirror and a lot more. There is some good social and cultural history here, and that comes close to making the book worth reading.
I'm glad I read this, I guess, but I am undecided if I will explore this author further.
November 10, 2020
Full of loathsome, selfish, shallow, attention-seeking characters, this "New York novel" of Dawn Powell is difficult to like. The writing, description and development of character is her usual fine work, but if you don't like New York and you seek the opposite in life of what the majority of the characters in this novel are seeking, you will often find your lip curling as you read about their shenanigans.
Top of the lip-curling list: Dodo. A 20-year-old woman who seeks to be the center of every male's attention, particularly those who have a big enough wallet. Baby-talking, baby-voiced, non-stop blabber, every time she showed up i mentally rolled my eyes. Next, the protagonist, Frederick Olliver, a 37-year-old history writer, who first is having an affair with a married playwright, then dumps her because she can't give him enough time and he doesn't fit in with her crowd, for the sickening Dodo, who plays him like a pack of cards. Ugh.
There's scenes of sexual harassment, a recalling of a rape by the playwright's husband, and plenty of bar scenes.
" 'how do you like our little schoolgirl, olliver?" Tyson asked, lightly spanking dodo. 'pretty sharp looking, I think. One of these days I'm going to keep her after school....' "
"There was the penthouse hardly a block away (he was sure he recognized the lattice wall and garden) which the woman wanted to sublet because 'her husband left her alone so much at nights.' Lyle had not liked the place, but that very night Allan had been impelled go back to see the blonde polish woman who was too pretty to be left alone. Call it rape, if you like, for she did struggle, but afterwards she was only ominously silent. baffled by the tacit scorn he had defensively said that she was not a virgin, after all. the woman had frostily replied, 'certainly not, but I like to choose.' "
Top of the lip-curling list: Dodo. A 20-year-old woman who seeks to be the center of every male's attention, particularly those who have a big enough wallet. Baby-talking, baby-voiced, non-stop blabber, every time she showed up i mentally rolled my eyes. Next, the protagonist, Frederick Olliver, a 37-year-old history writer, who first is having an affair with a married playwright, then dumps her because she can't give him enough time and he doesn't fit in with her crowd, for the sickening Dodo, who plays him like a pack of cards. Ugh.
There's scenes of sexual harassment, a recalling of a rape by the playwright's husband, and plenty of bar scenes.
" 'how do you like our little schoolgirl, olliver?" Tyson asked, lightly spanking dodo. 'pretty sharp looking, I think. One of these days I'm going to keep her after school....' "
"There was the penthouse hardly a block away (he was sure he recognized the lattice wall and garden) which the woman wanted to sublet because 'her husband left her alone so much at nights.' Lyle had not liked the place, but that very night Allan had been impelled go back to see the blonde polish woman who was too pretty to be left alone. Call it rape, if you like, for she did struggle, but afterwards she was only ominously silent. baffled by the tacit scorn he had defensively said that she was not a virgin, after all. the woman had frostily replied, 'certainly not, but I like to choose.' "
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