Hurry On Down is back sporting hard covers to celebrate 25 years in the business. Wain's new introduction repeats, for those who might have forgotten, that he was angry before any of the others were. Do the 'Angries' still speak to our condition? The question is, of course, false. There never was such an obligingly tidy movement, only a mood variously expressed. As comic narrative, the picaresque fortunes of Charles Lumley begin to date. The present inclination turns away from anger to disgust; and our preference now is for pugnacity experienced in the grotesque. As protest, Wain's novel, by its own admission, was a non-starter: 'I never rebelled against ordinary life … I never even got into it.' Keeping out, staying loose, staying neutral were its terms. Our understanding today of the impossibility of that pose came about largely because novels like Wain's proved it: but what cuts them off now, what may give them almost a period charm, is their notion of a hopeful compromise. That has virtually gone. (p. 679)
Zahir Jamal, "Bambini," in New Statesman (© 1978 The Statesman & Nation Publishing Co. Ltd.), Vol. 95, No. 2461, May 19, 1978, pp. 678-79.∗
This is a free excerpt of 196 words. There are 200 words (approx.
1 page at 300 words per page) in the full critical essay.
Read the rest of this Criticism with our Wain, John 1925–: Critical Essay by Zahir Jamal Access Pass.
