Anthony Adverse
THE MAN of the MONTH
[Farrar & Rinehart, $3.00]
To come, at my age, upon a three-volume novel of 500,000 words, so interesting that I could hardly bear to lay it down from beginning to end, has been an unusual experience; and yet such a story I have found in Hervey Allen’s Anthony Adverse.
It is a novel symphonic in plan, international in scope, universal in implication. The three-volume division is only formal, for the book, which is in fact published as one volume, is a unit, as closely woven as a tapestry, its multitude of figures, scenes, motives, and themes all falling into discernible patterns and given significance by a not too recondite symbolism. On the surface a story of adventure, covering forty years and ranging in tone from farce to tragedy, it is at bottom a parable of modern man in search of God. The author has apparently felt the force of the old saying of the humanists, that ‘the whole of humanity is but one man.’ The hero’s life, therefore, is a symbol of Western mankind, from the close of the Old Régime, through the Revolution and the Napoleonic Era, to the establishment of bourgeois democracy and the modern reign of money.
The first volume deals with the sad but beautiful love story of Anthony’s mother, his birth out of wedlock, his boyhood as a foundling in a convent at Livorno, and his youth as a clerk in the Casa di Bonnyfeather in that city, with his first loves and first friendships. The second volume tells of his journey to Cuba in the brig Wampanoag, with its drunken captain and his spinsterish wife, and their strange lunacy about a baby — a narrative of masterly humor and pathos; his meeting, in Havana, with the ‘mammalian philosopher,’ Cibo, and with Brother Francis, who is trying to follow literally the example of Christ; and the voyage to Africa, where Anthony engages in the slave trade, amasses a fortune, but fails to find happiness, and where he beholds the martyrdom of Francis — the climax of the novel. The third volume deals mainly with Anthony’s adventures in international finance. He revisits old scenes at Livorno, comes into collision with Don Luis, crosses the Simplon into France, meets Napoleon and Talleyrand, is sent into Spain on a secret mission, and thence proceeds to Louisiana, where he attains for a time ease and happiness, only to lose them again and to be sent adrift once more. His adventures now take him to the western frontier, to slavery, imprisonment, and suffering in Mexico. But before the end he learns by his own experience the lesson which Brother Francis had tried to teach by example.
Such a meagre sketch can suggest nothing except the variety of scene and incident. It cannot convey any of the beauty of some episodes, the savagery of others, the humor, pathos, scope, power, of many. I have not even mentioned the love stories of Angela, Florence, Dolores; the friendships with Toussaint, Vincent Nolte, Terry Mitchell; the strange perversions of Faith Paleologus and Don Ramon; the incidents of historical interest, or the demonstrations of international politics and banking. And I have not given a hint of the multitude of human types, historical or imaginary, that pass and disappear or come, go, and return.
One realizes only in retrospect that Anthony’s friends represent every type of man, his loves every appeal of sex. The symbols — the Tree, the Bronze Boy, the little Madonna — suggest the mystery of life, the struggle of flesh and spirit, the evolution of religion from idolatry to pure spirituality. But nothing could be more admirable than the way in which these themes, as well as the politico-economic history, the national and geographical diversities, are kept in due proportion and balance, so that, while reading, one is conscious only of the compelling interest of the story. Perhaps as remarkable as anything else is the skill with which the spirit of place is caught: the color and charm of Leghorn, the heavy perfumes of Havana, the gaunt aridity of the Pyrenees, the luxuriance of Louisiana, the dark savagery of Africa.
I am unable to think of another modern novel that ranges so far and yet is so solidly observed or imagined in every part, or one that more perfectly combines the freedom and charm of romance with the sense of fact of realism. I hope that I have conveyed my belief that it is a remarkable book.
R. M. GAY