Customer Reviews

Turn, Magic Wheel

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In this novel, written in 1936, Dawn Powell began a series of books satirizing literary life in New York City. Powells' biographer, Tim Page, has written of this book that "if there is another novel that manages simultaneously to be so funny and so sad, so riotous and so realistic, so acute and yet so accepting in the portrayal of flawed humankind, I have not yet found it." This is high praise for an obscure novel, but it is deserved.

The protagonist of the book is Dennis Orphen, a young man who, modelled on Dawn Powell herself, has left midwest Ohio to come to New York City in search of a literary career and of excitement.

Orphen begins as a "proletarian" leftist type of writer but soon achieves some popular acclaim. He then publishes a novel, "The Hunter's Wife" which satrizes sharply a famous American writer who has long lived abroad, Andrew Callingham (a Hemingway-like figure.) Orphen has learned about the details of Calligham's life through his three-year affair with Effie, Callingham's first wife whom Callingham had left 18 years earlier. (Effie is much older than Orphen.) Effie is despondent over the revelations in Orphen's book. Orphen also has affairs with other women, particularly a young married woman named Corrine, who loves Orphen but also loves her good if boring home with her husband.

The book is full of pictures of New York City streets, bars, homes and characters. It satirizes the literary establishment and literary tastes of the day unmercifully. The plot in the story turns on Orphen's attempt to reconcile what he has done as a writer -- written a fine novel -- with the betrayal of Effie. He needs to sort out his feeling for her and for Corrine.

Effie too needs to sort out her feelings towards Orphen and towards Callingham, her long-gone husband. She has the opportunity to do so when Callingham returns briefly to New York City. The title of the book, "Turn, Magic Wheel", is taken from an epigraph of Theocritus: "Turn, magic wheel, Bring homeward him I love" and is suggestive of the plot.

Some readers see this book is sharp, unremitting satire. I find it much more. It tells an unconventional love story lived by people with unconventional sexual mores. Dawn Powell brings real sympathy and understanding to the characters and their situation. The book is a beautiful portrait of New York City of the mid-1930's. It captures the allure of leaving one's youth in the midwest and seeking life in the excitement of Manhattan. Powell is a writer who deserves the acclaim she has recently received.

Turn, Magic Wheel provides the expected Powell wit and Powell plot and every sentence is read-out-loud perfect. This time, she places her characters in a tangled web surrounding the publication of Dennis Orphan's novel. His novel is based on the life of his only real friend who is an ex-wife of a Hemingway-type writer. Turn, Magic Wheel does not, however, match Powell's later works such as The Golden Spur or The Wicked Pavilions. Powell does not yet seem to have completely found her narrative voice and this leads to some hurky-jerk story telling. At times it seems as though she hasn't decided whether she wants to be a witty Henry James or, well, Dawn Powell.

I feel as if I know every single character in this raucous evocation of New York night-life as it was 60 years ago. Dawn Powell is a genius and this may be her greatest book.

Dennis Orphen's friend is Effie Callingham. Effie had been the wife of Andrew Callingham, (a Hemingway-like figure). Dennis has written NO DEFENSE. He believes Effie wears Andrew's name like a decoration. Effie learns that the novel is about her. With age she has started to seem frail, shrunken. Dennis realizes he never would have approached Effie if she hadn't been a former wife of Andy Callingham. Dennis goes to Luchow's to meet some people from the theater. He learns from his evening companion that he has been cast, (figuratively speaking), as Effie's lover.

After her three years of being married to Callingham Effie had tired of the infidelities. Her mistake was that she said something about the latest person, Marian, who, in turn, became her successor. Andy had told Effie that she was a swell person. The utterance of that phrase created a sardonic memory for Effie. Dennis tells another friend, Corinne, that he regrets writing the book. It has made Effie feel miserable.

Dennis Orphen had been compared to Chekhov and Huxley by critics. A publisher's agent notes that Orphen is a conflicted man and that is why he drinks. This story saves him from total insignificance. His disloyal acts remain mysterious.

Dawn Powell conveys with much verve the New York creative class. It is a shifting rambunctious group of personalities carrying mixed and devious agendas. The innocent person in such an array, in this case Effie, is liable to be victimized in a number of ways. We, the readers, don't necessarily have full sympathy for the plight of an innocent being since Powell's take is too ironic, too adult to leave any of the people portrayed in an umblemished state. This is high comedy. In the wicked fun of it, one is reminded of Mary McCarthy.

Ms.Powell disects the world of writers and lays them out on a slab for all to see. Takes you through one writer's bestseller and its consequences on those around him. Reminiscent of Capote's "betrayals" to his society acquaintances. Entertaining and witty as any of Ms. Powell's novels always are.

This early entry in Powell's New York cycle was a harbinger for greatness that was more than realized with her masterwork The Locusts Have No King and with its successor, The Wicked Pavilion. Turn Magic Wheel is among the most plot-driven of Powell's NY novels. It has, however, all the psychological acuity of her best writing. Rather than stringing, like the best pearls, a series of set pieces that comprise her other NY novels, Wheel's plot interconnects chapter to chapter, event to event in a more traditional novelistic way.

She is a master of conveying ambivalence in her characters, and on multiple levels. Not only do the characters have deeply divided conscious desires, they also delude themselves in contradictory ways and the many conflicts come to especial brilliance in her witty social settings. The parties, barrooms, and salons are navigated like the most intricate minefields by a vivid cast with the sophisticated conversation Powell observed in her own circle of artists. The theme of this book is romance. The many forms it assumes, often simultaneously for any given character, makes for entertaining observations and a surprisingly romantic storyline. Her best novels are treasures of American literature and I have been deeply gratified in working through her oeuvre.

The writing is very good, but somehow this story of 1935 New York City never comes to life. The characters are interesting and their situations were new to me, but I never really cared about any of them. It just didn't grab me and I was sorry about that.