A review by zefrog
Eustace Chisholm and the Works by James Purdy
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Although billed by many as a lost gay classic, Eustace Chisholm and the Works is in some ways not the most accessible of books, in that Purdy is not sparing of the sensitivities of his readers.
The book is divided into three parts made up of chapters, and an epilogue. It is set in the 30s, in the aftermath of the Great Depression, as the world prepares to return to war. It presents a disparate group of down-trodden misfits (Eustace's works), adrift in a harsh anarchic world, mirrored in the writing. At a time when society is falling apart, its rules in disarray, and the individual is left to its own economic and moral devices, they don't really know who they are and how to relate to each other and to themselves. Institutions, such as religion and the army, are less than a help to them; they prove to be a curse.
This rise of individualism, 20-odd years after a world war, clearly felt familiar in the late 1960s to Purdy's readers, who made it a bestseller, as it can still in some ways feel familiar to a modern reader. Some critiques were less enamoured, however. Failing to recognise the parallels, one of them called it a “fifth-rate avant-garde soap opera [about] prayer and faggotry.”
What the New York Times dismissed as "a homosexual novel" when it was released, is indeed at times arrowing, and surprisingly explicit for something brought out in 1967 by an established publisher ("I could drink your come in goblets" (p123), "Amos adjusted the folds of his scrotum with deliberate ostentation" (p159)). It is also quite literally visceral: the graphic and gory abortion scene is mirrored later in the book by scenes of barely consensual S&M torture that end with someone "carrying his bowels in his hands like provisions" (p233). Not content of having put his readers through this, Purdy, in the epilogue, goes for the jugular and takes an obvious dig at them, describing Eustace (Ace) as being "as anxious to know the end of the Daniel-Amos story as a depraved inveterate novel-reader" (p238).
Beyond the grotesque gothic of the situations, the writing is sparse and preoccupied mostly with describing the action. Rather alienatingly, the feelings of the characters as the scenes happen remain implicit, apart from a few expository passages dedicated specifically to painting the protagonists' inner lives, to emphasise how contained and discrete they are from what the characters experience.
In fact, events happen to them. Not only are they not agents of their own stories, they refuse to be who they know themselves to be. And the consequences are catastrophic. Homosexuality, for example, which is a reality for all the men of the story, is never the object of judgement. It is ostensibly accepted by everyone in the book. But three of the main characters cannot accept it within themselves.
There is also an artificiality about his characters that tells us that Purdy is trying to imbue them with allegorical value. They have qualities that transcend who they are as people. They represent more than who they are, even as they feel quite believable as people.
Most notably, Amos sits firmly in the literary tradition of the nihilistic angry young male. But the author also imbues him with religious traits, hinting in turn that he could either be the devil (we are told about his "goat feet" in one scene straight from a religious painting where they are washed by another man), cupid whom everyone falls in love with due to his angelic beauty, or "God Almighty" himself, as one of the characters calls him.
Similarly, despite being eponymous, Ace is not central to this ensemble piece. While being one of the outcasts, he is also both the enabler for all these people, the wizard behind the curtain, and a chronicler of their turpitude. He only serves as glue, almost as canvas to a deceptively simple narrative, which is constructed like a cubist painting, composed of an infinite number of layers, and bringing together different perspectives by dryly presenting each character's story in turn. Unlike a cubist painting, however, there is no narrative centre to the book. Just a yawning black hole of unfulfilled potential and passivity. Only in the epilogue, does Purdy finally dish out a sliver of redemptive hope.
The book, which is molded by Purdy's youthful experiences, comes as a vivid and haunting warning to embrace who we are, and to not "rip out the beautiful things in us so we’ll be acceptable to society." It is also a perverted ode to love. This is not the work of an ordinary mind. As Purdy himself later said: 'I'm not a gay writer, I'm a monster. Gay writers are too conservative.' There is nothing conservative about this book. Don't fret if you don't like it though. “I don’t think I’d like it if people liked me,” Purdy once remarked. “I’d think something had gone wrong.”
The book is divided into three parts made up of chapters, and an epilogue. It is set in the 30s, in the aftermath of the Great Depression, as the world prepares to return to war. It presents a disparate group of down-trodden misfits (Eustace's works), adrift in a harsh anarchic world, mirrored in the writing. At a time when society is falling apart, its rules in disarray, and the individual is left to its own economic and moral devices, they don't really know who they are and how to relate to each other and to themselves. Institutions, such as religion and the army, are less than a help to them; they prove to be a curse.
This rise of individualism, 20-odd years after a world war, clearly felt familiar in the late 1960s to Purdy's readers, who made it a bestseller, as it can still in some ways feel familiar to a modern reader. Some critiques were less enamoured, however. Failing to recognise the parallels, one of them called it a “fifth-rate avant-garde soap opera [about] prayer and faggotry.”
What the New York Times dismissed as "a homosexual novel" when it was released, is indeed at times arrowing, and surprisingly explicit for something brought out in 1967 by an established publisher ("I could drink your come in goblets" (p123), "Amos adjusted the folds of his scrotum with deliberate ostentation" (p159)). It is also quite literally visceral: the graphic and gory abortion scene is mirrored later in the book by scenes of barely consensual S&M torture that end with someone "carrying his bowels in his hands like provisions" (p233). Not content of having put his readers through this, Purdy, in the epilogue, goes for the jugular and takes an obvious dig at them, describing Eustace (Ace) as being "as anxious to know the end of the Daniel-Amos story as a depraved inveterate novel-reader" (p238).
Beyond the grotesque gothic of the situations, the writing is sparse and preoccupied mostly with describing the action. Rather alienatingly, the feelings of the characters as the scenes happen remain implicit, apart from a few expository passages dedicated specifically to painting the protagonists' inner lives, to emphasise how contained and discrete they are from what the characters experience.
In fact, events happen to them. Not only are they not agents of their own stories, they refuse to be who they know themselves to be. And the consequences are catastrophic. Homosexuality, for example, which is a reality for all the men of the story, is never the object of judgement. It is ostensibly accepted by everyone in the book. But three of the main characters cannot accept it within themselves.
There is also an artificiality about his characters that tells us that Purdy is trying to imbue them with allegorical value. They have qualities that transcend who they are as people. They represent more than who they are, even as they feel quite believable as people.
Most notably, Amos sits firmly in the literary tradition of the nihilistic angry young male. But the author also imbues him with religious traits, hinting in turn that he could either be the devil (we are told about his "goat feet" in one scene straight from a religious painting where they are washed by another man), cupid whom everyone falls in love with due to his angelic beauty, or "God Almighty" himself, as one of the characters calls him.
Similarly, despite being eponymous, Ace is not central to this ensemble piece. While being one of the outcasts, he is also both the enabler for all these people, the wizard behind the curtain, and a chronicler of their turpitude. He only serves as glue, almost as canvas to a deceptively simple narrative, which is constructed like a cubist painting, composed of an infinite number of layers, and bringing together different perspectives by dryly presenting each character's story in turn. Unlike a cubist painting, however, there is no narrative centre to the book. Just a yawning black hole of unfulfilled potential and passivity. Only in the epilogue, does Purdy finally dish out a sliver of redemptive hope.
The book, which is molded by Purdy's youthful experiences, comes as a vivid and haunting warning to embrace who we are, and to not "rip out the beautiful things in us so we’ll be acceptable to society." It is also a perverted ode to love. This is not the work of an ordinary mind. As Purdy himself later said: 'I'm not a gay writer, I'm a monster. Gay writers are too conservative.' There is nothing conservative about this book. Don't fret if you don't like it though. “I don’t think I’d like it if people liked me,” Purdy once remarked. “I’d think something had gone wrong.”