Customer Reviews

South Wind

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is not a book for the average reader, nor is this review aimed at such. Norman Douglas wrote about places he lived, and we are fortunate that his masterpiece, South Wind, shows off his unequalled flair for capturing in prose the Mediterranean vistas, hillsides and small villages of his favorite island, Capri. Thrown in for good measure is a delighful and wickedly urban - one might better say Catholic (or even Roman) in the best sense - view of the foibles of humankind. Douglas spent much of his adult life in exile for sexual behavior, perhaps peccadillos, perhaps worse: his novel certainly does nothing to assuage bourgeois respectability. In it's day, 1917, South Wind was deliberately risque. There is even a murder mystery, though Douglas pays only a very discreet nod to that genre.

But it's for the prose depictions of the Mediterranean landscapes, done in glorious and unforgetable language, that we read South Wind. The passages conveying the timelessness of the great grotto are simply magisterial. If you think Durrell captures the Mediterranean better than any other English writer you have not read Douglas. Do not lump Douglas, because of his subject matter in this book, with Firbank: South Wind is emphatically better than the verbal high-jinks of Firbank, whose over-indulgent books never convincingly connect with reality. Douglas, by contrast, can write as telling and visually acute a piece of descriptive prose as Mark Twain.

A dated book for most, an unforgettable book for the connoisseur. If you appreciate the prose of South Wind there are several other equally well-written examples of his work in the travel books, especially Siren Land, Fountains in the Sand, and Old Calabria.

I hope that this gem of a book is reprinted soon. For all those who cannot wait, wend to the Strand bookstore on Broadway and 12th in NYC, and check out the Modern Library section; a few copies may still linger. Like its title, the book sweeps over the reader in a sort of halcyon gale of language. Read once, the book must be re-read just so that one can retrace the plot. When not totally high on language I got glimpses of two of the most vivid characters in literature -- Mr. Keith and Count Calovaglia -- and that what it was - a glimpse. Like the South Wind of the title, the book leaves the reader terribly thirsty for more -- more of the island, more of the people, more of the flora, more of the rocks, for crying out loud. It has the sense and immediacy of an impressionist painting. In the 1924 Modern Library copy I possess, Douglas has an introduction in which he enumerates the islands that inspired the locale in the book. I am still considering an island hopping vacation to the Mediterranean.

Norman Douglas (1868-1952) spent a good part of his life abroad and Capri was the adoptive home of his last years. In 1911, he had already written a travel book on the Island and Sorrentine Peninsula (Siren Land), but in 1917 he issued his first novel "South Wind", that became one of the most popular reads during WWI (it is stated that many soldiers had it in their backpack).

It has been defined as a conversation-novel without a plot, and its characters actually do nothing else than exchange their ideas and opinions (on the flow of existence, moral, comparative theology, aesthetics, fanaticism, medicine, cooking) as typical of Rablesian prose or what could have taken place in a respectable London club. The voices mix and tangle, endlessly and obsessively interrogating themselves with humor and intellectual disenchantment. But "South Wind" is before all else the discovery of the South, the Mediterranean, the profane art of living, modelled on ancient Greece, that Italy and Capri in particular seemed then to embody.

An Anglican Bishop Mr Thomas Heard, on his way back from Africa (imaginary Bampopo) to England, visits for a short stay the Island of Nepenthe (Capri), where his cousin is staying. He will stay only a few days, but long enough to change his northern pruderie in a empathic attitude toward the worlds vices ("the frolicsome perversity"), starting from a crime he involuntarily peeps upon. The novel is full of characters: Denis, the caste poet worried by the possibility of sinning, the smiling completely pagan Italian priest Don Francesco, the "evil" Muhlen, the sceptic and artistic count Caloveglia, the "extravagant" Mr. Keith, "owner of one of the most beautiful villa's in Capri", the cousin Meadows, Miss Wilberforce an funny alcoholic that undresses in public, the rich van Koppen, the Russian mystic Bazhakulov, halfway between Rasputin and a bolschevic with his tribe of followers, Mrs. Steynlin a still appealing middle age matron that entertains a relation with a young Russian, Mr. Ernst Eames a commentator of the ancient history of Nepenthe written by a seventeenth century Italian historian. All these characters are actually inspired by people Douglas met in Capri during those roaring years as he states later on in his memory books. The Scirocco, the South Wind sweeps the Island, and everyone starts behaving strangely, or exactly like they feel like, which is the reason why the went to Nepenthe in the first place, and Bishop Heard is caught up in a spider web of distinguo and doubts until the wind strips away his moral imperatives in favour of Nepenthe's "pantheistic hedonism" and makes him "swim in the air".

The roots of this novel can be traced to the concept of "Reverse Conversion" or the more modern "Going Native" that was popular in those times and is often used by D.H.Lawrence, James Hilton and others. (D.H.Lawrence used Norman Douglas as the model for his Aaron in "Aaron's Rod"). Part of the plot is borrowed from Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Marble Faun" as has been interestingly pointed out by Edmund Wilson. However, if we want to read it in the historical context it was written in and explain its lasting success to the 1930's, we must take into account that it was intended (Fussell) as "a rebuke to the winds of war that were gathering in the North of Europe", "a plea for youth and tolerance to the nations that were starting a suicidal war", but it is also a celebration of the ideas liberally generated and exposed. These ideas were those discussed in that period in the intellectual milieu and are still popular today among young people.

Even if this is an "antiquarian book", I enjoyed it very much. As I said of "Siren Land", best read on a terrace overlooking "The Piazzetta".

Returning from Africa, the Anglican Bishop of Bompopo detours to the little island of Nepenthe, where he finds some charming natives and an assortment of interesting and eccentric expatriates. As the Nepenthean year slides gently along, the expatriates go on about their lives, living in a dreamland, and maintaining illusions that keep them happy about themselves.

This 1917 book is the work of George Norman Douglas (1868-1952), Scottish author and diplomat, and is considered by some to be his masterpiece. The edition I possess is the 1924 Modern Library one, which includes a short introduction by the author, in which he defends his book against the charge that it does not possess a plot. Well, in truth, this book is not plot driven - it is a sort of theater of the absurd tale, in which people's hypocrisy, inanity and stupidity are laid bare. Quite a fun tale, I must admit that it's been a while since I have enjoyed a book quite so much!

The copyright notice for this book says: "the text in this book has been downloaded from the internet and has been extensively edited and typeset."

I bought this book with the intention of reading the original text, not an "extensively edited edition".

The book also says: "Copyright 2006". There is no mention of the original date of publication (in was in the 20's) or of who published it and where.

To make matters worse, if that were possible, the book is called an EasyRead Edition, despite the text being printed in blocks of type; there are no indentations for paragraphs or conversations.

In short, there is nothing easy to read about this truncated, sloppily (lazily) typeset edition. I wanted to read the original text, and I do not recommend this inferior reproduction.

The publishers should be ashamed of this product.

As the previous reviewer notes, South Wind is an excellent work of fiction. It is Norman Douglas' most highly acclaimed work. This reprint edition however, suffers from abominably poor transcription and proofreading. Letters are missing from words and spaces are sometimes inserted where they don't belong. In some instances a return character or two is omitted in dialogues. I would guess that I have spotted over a hundred errors. They do not undermine the quality of the story, but do make it harder to read. This book is in the public domain and so is available on the web in HTML format, possibly with fewer errors. That said, I am glad to have a printed version of this book. Reading or printing it from the web would be a cumbersome enterprise.

EDIT: 2008, The book description now says that it was published in 2007. It's possible the errors have been corrected, but I don't know. Used copies in other bindings should be available, and Amazon lists at least one other contemporary reprint paperback edition.

Published in 1917 and based on the author's expereince on Capri, this rather long winded novel failed to interest apart from the occasional witty observation. Very little plot and characters that are observed well but with little meaningful or interesting interaction between them. Some people will definitely be amused by some of the eccentric characters but at over 400 pages long this alone is not sufficient to maintain interest. The murder on page 360 was after a long slog. Read it if social history about foreigners living on a small island circa 1900 in the mediterranean (the fictitious island of Nepenthe in the book) is your special interest. However, I suggest reading Compton Mackenzie's "Vestal Fire" which I found a much more amusing insight to expatriate life on Capri.