Futility: A Novel (Neversink) [Paperback]

William Gerhardie (Author), Edith Wharton (Preface)

Book Description

Release date: October 2, 2012 | Series: Neversink

Hailed by his famous contemporaries including Edith Wharton, H.G. Wells, Katherine Mansfield, Graham Greene, and Evelyn Waugh, who called him a "genius," William Gerhardie is one of the twentieth century's forgotten masters, and his lovely comedy Futility one of the century's neglected masterpieces.

It tells the story of someone very similar to Gerhardie himself: a young Englishman raised in Russia who returns to St. Petersburg and falls in love with the daughter of a hilariously dysfunctional family--all played out with the armies of the Russian Revolution marching back and forth outside the parlor window.

Part British romantic comedy, part Russian social realism, and with a large cast of memorable characters, this astoundingly funny and poignant novel is the tale of people persisting in love and hope despite the odds.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"To those of my generation he was the most important new novelist to appear in our young life. We were proud of his early and immediate success, like men who have spotted the right horse." -- Graham Greene

"I have talent, but he has genius." --- Evelyn Waugh

"[Futility] is a living book....it is warm. One can put it down and it goes on breathing." -- Katherine Mansfield

"Why was there no shouting about Gerhardie's Futility--shouting to reach the suburbs and the country towns? True, devastating. A wonderful book." -- H.G. Wells

"Mr. Gerhardie's novel is extremely modern; but it has bulk and form, a recognisable orbit, and that promise of more to come that one always feels latent in the beginnings of the born novelist" -- Edith Wharton

'William Gerhardie is our Gogol's Overcoat. We all came out of him.' -- Olivia Manning
'In my opinion Gerhardie has genius.' -- Arnold Bennett

'He is a comic writer of genius ... but his art is profoundly serious.' -- C. P. Snow

About the Author

WILLIAM GERHARDIE (1895–1977) was born “Gerhardi” in St. Petersburg, Russia, the son of British parents—he added the final “e” late in life. At the outbreak of World War I Gerhardie joined the army where his language skills led to assignment at the British Mission in Siberia. There he worked in a propaganda campaign aimed at disrupting the Bolshevik take-over of the country after the Russian Revolution (which had ruined his family and forced them to flee the country). Gerhardie’s work earned him the Order of the British Empire at age 24. Upon his return to England, he enrolled at Oxford and soon produced his first novel, Futility, based on his recent experience in Russia. The book won praise from Evelyn Waugh, H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Edith Wharton, Graham Greene and others—but did not sell well. While still at school he wrote the first critical appreciation of Chekhov to appear in English, still cited by scholars as one of the most perceptive. Several critically celebrated novels followed, including The Polyglots, Doom, and Pending Heaven, and he became the toast of literary London. The press magnate Lord Beaverbrook doted on Gerhardie and tried, unsuccessfully, to increase Gerhardie’s sales by serializing his books in his newspapers. In 1939, Gerhardie stopped publishing, although for the rest of his life he told friends he was working on a four-volume novel called The Present Breath. Gradually falling into poverty, he rarely left his London apartment, and when he died there in 1977, no trace of The Present Breath was found.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Melville House (October 2, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9781612191454
• ISBN-13: 978-1612191454
• ASIN: 1612191452
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.5 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #232,201 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars An unhappy family unhappy in its own way December 31, 2012

By Jay Dickson VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

This beautiful re-issue of William Gerhardie's 1922 novel FUTILITY so engrossed me that I literally read it right through a plane connection, and had to get a standby ticket for the next one. What makes this all the more remarkable is that the novel's more spellbinding qualities do not depend at all upon conventional plotting because it provides nothing like a plot ion the conventional nineteenth-century sense of one: the narrator (a young intelligent British army officer raised in Russia, much like Gerhardie himself) even comments at great length how life is nothing like a novelistic plot, though we keep expecting them in our lives. Much of this novel is indeed unexpected; although the first section (involving the narrator's meeting of a strangely dysfunctional Muscovite family) is nearly devoid of description, the second section (involving his encounter with the family years later, during the Russian revolution in Vladivostok) is rich in it, particularly during a lushly-evoked train journey through Siberia. The depiction of an unhappy family owes much (as the narrator and the other characters here are careful to signal) to Chekhov, and his THREE SISTERS in particular; other aspects of the story (particularly its tone) anticipate Beckett. And yet it's unlike any other book you might ever read. Although its sense of lives spent waiting for impossible goals (in terms of love, family, and money) may seem tragic, the general tone of the book is oddly hopeful.

FUTILITY made an enormous impact on the London literary scene when it was first published in 1922, as were Gerhardie's later novels (particularly THE POLYGLOTS and DOOM). Later, Gerhardie--who was friends with H. G. Wells, Evelyn Waugh, and Katherine Mansfield (to whom the book is dedicated, and who helped in its revisions)--outlived almost all of his fellow modernists, and became almost entirely neglected. This lovely little novel shows how overdue he is for a revival, even though most of his oeuvre is difficult to fit into our usual narratives of modernism's major themes and ideas. Gerhardie is important enough, however, to show that if these narratives cannot fully incorporate him they must be inadequate, much as has been the case for other major figures of the era recently rediscovered, such as Richard Hughes or Sylvia Townsend Warner. This is an exciting re-discovery.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Gerhardie isn't Tolstoy January 1, 2013

By George Staples

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I did manage to finish this one, but found the title to be very apt. (Here are the required extra words.)