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Post by kj on Nov 14, 2021 11:23:03 GMT
I think Francis Stuart may have been mentioned in passing a couple times here over the years, and I can't even remember if I've made a post about him before, but for no real reason I felt like making a post about him this morning.
Stuart is of course "the bad boy" of 20th century Irish literature, whose time in Nazi Germany was/is a matter of fierce controversy.
His bildungsroman Black List Section H is a great read. I also strongly recommend the collection of his wartime broadcasts from Berlin. Stuart in later life denied they had been very political and were concerned mainly with literature, but this turned out to be false. The vast bulk of them concern what he perceived to be the soulless nature of modern western life and his disappointment that Ireland (even then!) was heading in the same direction. Stuart's own gamble on Hitler as an alternative failed him of course.
The one novel I would really recommend to anyone was written immediately after the war and is called The Pillar of Cloud. It concerns the life of a group of survivors in Germany living in the rubble and trying to forge new ways of being and love in the aftermath of the horror. It has a genuine humility and many Christian themes, and is very moving. Compton MacKenzie called it the best novel about the post-war period ever written.
Stuart was a subject of controversy in Irish letters in the 90s with his membership of Aosdana. Whatever one thinks of him and his life, in today's Ireland he would have absolutely no chance of publication.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Nov 15, 2021 9:57:03 GMT
I think Francis Stuart may have been mentioned in passing a couple times here over the years, and I can't even remember if I've made a post about him before, but for no real reason I felt like making a post about him this morning. Stuart is of course "the bad boy" of 20th century Irish literature, whose time in Nazi Germany was/is a matter of fierce controversy. His bildungsroman Black List Section H is a great read. I also strongly recommend the collection of his wartime broadcasts from Berlin. Stuart in later life denied they had been very political and were concerned mainly with literature, but this turned out to be false. The vast bulk of them concern what he perceived to be the soulless nature of modern western life and his disappointment that Ireland (even then!) was heading in the same direction. Stuart's own gamble on Hitler as an alternative failed him of course. The one novel I would really recommend to anyone was written immediately after the war and is called The Pillar of Cloud. It concerns the life of a group of survivors in Germany living in the rubble and trying to forge new ways of being and love in the aftermath of the horror. It has a genuine humility and many Christian themes, and is very moving. Compton MacKenzie called it the best novel about the post-war period ever written. Stuart was a subject of controversy in Irish letters in the 90s with his membership of Aosdana. Whatever one thinks of him and his life, in today's Ireland he would have absolutely no chance of publication. It's interesting that virtually all sides at the time of the Irish Revolution, and even before, expressed the ambition that Ireland would not develop in the soulless, materialist direction of other Western nations. Even Michael Collins, always held up as the hard-headed pragmatist, expresses this hope in his book The Path to Freedom (a collection of newspaper articles rather than a book, to be accurate). I've never read Francis Stuart but I've encountered mentions of him in Yeats biographies, as the husband of Iseult Gonne. I must say, I've never understood all the fuss about Maud Gonne's supposed beauty-- going on photographs-- but her daughter seems to have been a stunner. Sorry for dragging the tone of the discussion down... |
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Post by kj on Nov 15, 2021 18:47:33 GMT
I've never read Francis Stuart but I've encountered mentions of him in Yeats biographies, as the husband of Iseult Gonne. I must say, I've never understood all the fuss about Maud Gonne's supposed beauty-- going on photographs-- but her daughter seems to have been a stunner. Sorry for dragging the tone of the discussion down... Curiously enough, Maolsheachlann, I looked through the archives here and you did mention that had dipped into his youthful autobiography at one point and wasn't too impressed. He was more of a flashy young man then. His later stuff is more sober. Re Maud Gonne, I've dipped into the latest biography and it seems Stuart had no time for her at all, regarding her as a complete self-dramatising pre-madonna. Iseult was indeed pretty stunning looking, although alas Stuart didn't treat her too well. |
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Nov 15, 2021 19:16:07 GMT
I've never read Francis Stuart but I've encountered mentions of him in Yeats biographies, as the husband of Iseult Gonne. I must say, I've never understood all the fuss about Maud Gonne's supposed beauty-- going on photographs-- but her daughter seems to have been a stunner. Sorry for dragging the tone of the discussion down... Curiously enough, Maolsheachlann, I looked through the archives here and you did mention that had dipped into his youthful autobiography at one point and wasn't too impressed. He was more of a flashy young man then. His later stuff is more sober. Re Maud Gonne, I've dipped into the latest biography and it seems Stuart had no time for her at all, regarding her as a complete self-dramatising pre-madonna. Iseult was indeed pretty stunning looking, although alas Stuart didn't treat her too well. I did glance through one of his memoirs but I wouldn't consider that enough to have "read" him! |
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Post by Seán Ó Murchú on Nov 16, 2021 8:45:58 GMT
Francis Stuart abandoned wife and children at their home in Laragh, Co. Wicklow in 1937!
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Nov 16, 2021 9:17:49 GMT
Francis Stuart abandoned wife and children at their home in Laragh, Co. Wicklow in 1937! Charles Dickens also abandoned his wife. |
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Post by Seán Ó Murchú on Nov 16, 2021 10:44:19 GMT
Francis Stuart abandoned wife and children at their home in Laragh, Co. Wicklow in 1937! Charles Dickens also abandoned his wife. What's your point? I stated this as it tells me alot about the type of man he was atleast when he was young. I don't know much about him. |
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Post by cato on Nov 16, 2021 12:06:50 GMT
Charles Dickens also abandoned his wife. What's your point? I stated this as it tells me alot about the type of man he was atleast when he was young. I don't know much about him. I presume Sean it's more or less the point you made but about another (much more popular and influential) writer. |
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Post by Seán Ó Murchú on Nov 17, 2021 8:26:19 GMT
What's your point? I stated this as it tells me alot about the type of man he was atleast when he was young. I don't know much about him. I presume Sean it's more or less the point you made but about another (much more popular and influential) writer. My understanding is that Charles Dickens Divorced his wife vs abandoned. Obviously I'm not saying Charles Dickens was a saint. |
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Nov 17, 2021 9:23:09 GMT
I presume Sean it's more or less the point you made but about another (much more popular and influential) writer. My understanding is that Charles Dickens Divorced his wife vs abandoned. Obviously I'm not saying Charles Dickens was a saint. He treated her very badly, for no reason other than that he became tired of her and was attracted to another woman. I'm not beating up on Charles Dickens, just saying that lots of great writers have had questionable private lives. |
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Post by cato on Nov 17, 2021 13:16:23 GMT
My understanding is that Charles Dickens Divorced his wife vs abandoned. Obviously I'm not saying Charles Dickens was a saint. He treated her very badly, for no reason other than that he became tired of her and was attracted to another woman. I'm not beating up on Charles Dickens, just saying that lots of great writers have had questionable private lives. I suppose this is one of the issues at the heart of the culture wars . Does bad morality or the wrong views as we judge them now invalidate a book or a work of art etc. Ed West whose book I read recently made a remark that Conservatives are absolutists when dealing with modern cultures but relativists when discussing the past. Liberals are relativists when discussing modern cultures and absolutists when judging the past. |
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Nov 17, 2021 13:22:43 GMT
He treated her very badly, for no reason other than that he became tired of her and was attracted to another woman. I'm not beating up on Charles Dickens, just saying that lots of great writers have had questionable private lives. I suppose this is one of the issues at the heart of the culture wars . Does bad morality or the wrong views as we judge them now invalidate a book or a work of art etc. Ed West whose book I read recently made a remark that Conservatives are absolutists when dealing with modern cultures but relativists when discussing the past. Liberals are relativists when discussing modern cultures and absolutists when judging the past. I take a frankly subjective approach on this. If something about the author grates on me so much that I won't enjoy the work, I give it a miss. For instance, I was about to watch the film Superbad the other night when I remembered that its writer/director Judd Apatow had campaigned to have Milo Yiannapolous's book deal cancelled. I couldn't really stomach it after that. I stopped listening to Horslips for a few months after they called the Irexit conference a bunch of "saddos", when they used their song Dearg Doom. I stopped listening to U2 for about a year after they pushed a Yes vote in the abortion referendum. I came back to them both eventually. In general, I think we should make a distinction between the work and the author. Although if someone discovered a manuscript of Ted Bundy's poetry, and he turned out to be better than Tennyson and Larkin combined, I might feel that principle put under strain. |
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Post by Tomas on Nov 17, 2021 15:41:22 GMT
I suppose this is one of the issues at the heart of the culture wars . Does bad morality or the wrong views as we judge them now invalidate a book or a work of art etc. Ed West whose book I read recently made a remark that Conservatives are absolutists when dealing with modern cultures but relativists when discussing the past. Liberals are relativists when discussing modern cultures and absolutists when judging the past. I take a frankly subjective approach on this. If something about the author grates on me so much that I won't enjoy the work, I give it a miss. For instance, I was about to watch the film Superbad the other night when I remembered that its writer/director Judd Apatow had campaigned to have Milo Yiannapolous's book deal cancelled. I couldn't really stomach it after that. I stopped listening to Horslips for a few months after they called the Irexit conference a bunch of "saddos", when they used their song Dearg Doom. I stopped listening to U2 for about a year after they pushed a Yes vote in the abortion referendum. I came back to them both eventually. In general, I think we should make a distinction between the work and the author. Although if someone discovered a manuscript of Ted Bundy's poetry, and he turned out to be better than Tennyson and Larkin combined, I might feel that principle put under strain. Interesting note Cato, this is one pet subject almost or least a thing I have been pondering now and then for years. Mostly I simply separate art and artist, and surprisingly often even the very best in art can also be made by good people as artists. I wouldn´t turn down Dickens books due to him being a bad person in respect to his family, but it saddens me to know it no less. |
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