Richard Shelton is an unusual young man for his milieu of the upper class English at the height of wealth and power of British Empire - he questions the assumptions, not as a philosophical exercise to be conducted when one is at the study table or a conference for a debate or a lecture or posing at a gathering of intelligentsia, but simply as and when they are challenged by life, by meeting someone outside one's own circle or social connections or general caste.
So he meets poor, indigent, during his normal course of travel and life, where he is not even gone out of his way, and notices others of his social level or caste avoiding looking at them, and understands them thinking "really one should not be put upon like this, these people should know better than to force themselves on conscience of decent people, they should work and save ..." or something along those lines. He however hears them, listens and understands them as fellow humans in a difficult situation, temporarily or otherwise, through circumstance and fate, but not necessarily their own fault.
In this he is setting forth on a path that would take him away from them - his caste and circle, that is - and their approval, and more. He does not limit himself to thinking silently, and behaving like others of his caste so as to not alarm them, to do them some justice - he helps the poor, the indigent, and meets them in his own or their rooms, and carries on a dialogue that does take him away from his own.
It would be revolutionary enough if it were not for the engagement he has recently entered into, with a young pretty girl of his own caste. And she firmly belongs to where she is and has been brought up into. This is normal, natural, and one cannot fault her for not willing to step out of the comfort of her wealth and the thinking that keeps it rather than endangering it by admitting poor as equal humans.
Shelton has attempted to do his best along her requirements - not meeting until the wedding is one, which he can hardly stand, so he visits her parents' home instead, so as to see her in environment where she is safe in reputation if not necessarily from her own or his desire. But his strange behaviour meanwhile has become known, and her family including her are alarmed, and she as they question his behaviour, his thinking, his deviation from what "everyone" considers normal, and so forth. Each one of her set has a different approach in this, they are not of a mould, but of a set enough in that he does stand to incur disapproval if not changed in a hurry. and he is divided at best, uncomfortable in a deep way, not in accord with them.
Or her. And while she does not bother with philosophy or politics or psychology or meeting fellow humans of poorer castes, she understands all this, and that he or his poor friend whom her family has tried to help are really looking down on her set.
The limit of her fortitude and discomfort - which she is battling increasingly closer at border of - she reaches when a woman in the neighbourhood who happens to be object of disapproval of everyone else of her set - everyone who is decent, as far as Antonia goes - is sympathised with by Shelton, instead of the cold disapproving distant manner appropriate; it is a difference of demeanour, not offer of help or physical details, but it is enough for her to realise the distance is unbreachable.
The woman so disapproved of has committed the social sin for the time or until the time, of leaving her own husband and coming to live with another of the set, and this is unforgivable even if there has been a divorce and a fresh marriage - her set is discussing how the new man in her life stands to lose everything for certain, and can only hope to read and write, rather than meet people and make any use of his excellent horses.
So Antonia breaks up with him and then recants on grounds of her not breaking her promise, but he on his part cannot envisage a miserable life with someone pretty and young whom he desires with no meeting of minds, and assures her in writing that she need not worry - the break is mutual. It is the beginning of his losing caste.
Island Pharisees, because theirs is an unspoken code that goes to preserve their own welfare and wealth, let the world pay for it all - the local poor, those of Europe, or of colonies; misery take the hindmost is only natural for the set.
There is a breathtaking subtlety about this that matches that of his - the author's - best work, although it is his characteristic in general. The protagonist's journeys on foot across the English countryside and his travails parallel his tremendous journey of thought that takes him much further but without his noticing it quite so much, much like a fast plane or a ship on still water with infinite horizon will lull one into not noticing quite how far one has come. The author refuses to give extreme colours to the contrasting circumstances, or extreme behaviour - it is all very civilised, but nevertheless the young man at the centre of it all manages to discern undercurrents, understand what he is supposed to, and the dawn of his consciousness is as silent, as subtle and yet swift as dawn of a day.
Thursday, May 1, 2014.
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