Wolf Solent

John Cowper Powys is one of those authors who can be recognized just by the distinction of his prose, employing a style characterized by a picturesque metaphorical lyricism and, particularly in "Wolf Solent," the title character's deep introspection regarding his relationship to the world. Terms like "first cause" and "magnetic" are repeated throughout the novel like motifs, revealing the author's preoccupation with metaphysical forces, motivations, and effects.Wolf is a 35-year-old man who, at the beginning of the novel, is moving from London to his native county of Dorsetshire to take a job assisting a wealthy man named Urquhart, the Squire of King's Barton, in writing a book about the more scandalous aspects of the histories of local families. Wolf finds Urquhart to be rather eccentric and petty and soon learns that his previous assistant, a young man named Redfern, died under disputable circumstances. This sounds like a setup for an intriguing mystery, especially when Wolf discovers Urquhart's gardener and another man digging around Redfern's grave one night, but the novel is concerned more with the essence of secrecy than with the mechanics of revealing secrets.The residents of Dorsetshire, with their piquant personalities, rustic sincerity, and realistic complexity, are worthy of a Thomas Hardy novel; no set of characters can expect higher praise than that. They are there not just to drive the plot forward but to act and react against Wolf and each other to create a theater of emotions and passions in which life becomes a colorful, unpredictable masquerade. The principal players include Jason Otter, a morose, temperamental poet; Selena Gault, an ugly old spinster with whom Wolf's father had had an affair; Tilly-Valley, a foolish vicar; and Bob Weevil, a lascivious butcher whose sausages possibly connote something priapic about his role in the community.Wolf's research brings him to two young ladies with whom he falls in love: Gerda Torp, the stonecutter's daughter, whose stunning beauty and nymphlike nature arouse his sexual desires; and Christie Malakite, the bookseller's daughter, a relatively plain but bright girl who is harboring a vile secret about her father and to whom Wolf relates on an intellectual level. As Wolf's romantic reveries careen between the two women representing two different erotic ideals, body and mind, we see an intense internal conflict building within him, one that threatens to, but somehow never does, unravel his inner peace.And what is the source of this peace? Simply that Wolf has escaped the modernity and materialism of London to embrace the idyllic antiquity of rural England and to experience "certain sensations" -- not that he knows exactly what these are yet, but perhaps the fun is in not knowing, in exploration and self-discovery. This is also why he is annoyed by the encroachment of automobiles and airplanes into Dorsetshire towards the end of the novel -- twentieth-century technology has no place

This is the most serious comic novel I've ever read. Cowper Powys is not afraid to make his main character, Wolf Solent, at times unlikable, frustrating, self-absorbed, the butt of jokes, but ultimately someone I was pulling for despite (or probably because of) his flaws. Every character in the novel is alive and dimensional, touching, often hilarious, full of frailties and illusions, especially Wolf. What is remarkable about the book is that Cowper Powys shows the transformation of a young man in all its contradictory minutiae. The author remembers and shows everything about the process of growth and change, all the details that most of us gloss over or forget. The writing itself is like an hallucinogenic dream--half mad, surging with the glories of the senses, and tumbling with emotions. It is alternately exhilarating and exhausting, funny and wrenching, easy and uneasy. I picked the book up and put it down in fits and starts, worn out like a swimmer caught in a large blue wave. Wolf's mystical and very physical journey through illusion, the shattering of illusion, and its aftermath is a celebration of the things of the earth, the power of the pulse of life over the coldness of the grave. It is a torrent of philosophy; a breakdown between mind, spirit, body; between integration, disintegration, and reintegration; a sensual delight. It worn me out, wore thin, then filled me up again. Wolf Solent--a poetic, mystical, idealistic young man comes to a small town in Dorset, is torn between two loves, discovers Beautiful Truths and Hard Truths, and must find a way to reconcile the contrary currents of life. We follow the details of his soul's journey over the course of a year--sometimes stream of consciousness, sometimes chaotic narrative experience, or funny scenes of people pretending to be civilized but really acting out of the mysterious, instinctual, pagan human heart. This narrative is much like the chaotic jumble inside the head of every person who thinks seriously about life's meaning, and maybe thinks too much. It is about the churning brain, about the bodies which carry these thought-machines around the luminous earth, about the spirit which envelopes both and aches, always, for something more and greater than itself.

No other author I've read creates the sights, sounds and smells of a portion of the world as effectively as John Cowper Powys, and this book is typical of his art. Pick up this book, and you'll find yourself slipping into Dorset of early 20th century. You'll find yourself surrounded by eccentric, but facinating characters who don't always act as you expect them to. You'll begin to notice the small (and large) things that make life interesting.Beware, however. Powys' is NOT an author to read quickly. Do that and you'll find yourself annoyed by his philosophical and psychological musings. Take plenty of time to read his carefully crafted language and you're in for a wonderful experience.

The cumulative force of this novel is tremendous. The tragedy of "Wolf Solent" is the central tragedy of all lives: it is the tragedy of experience. Powys succeeds without force or melodrama, without wars or kings or suicides. His characters merely exist in the world, and are driven down by it, stripped of their illusions and "mythologies" (to borrow Wolf's phrase). And the writing is stunning. The book reads at times like a prose-poem, and Powys' descriptions of Dorset make one want to flee for the country. It is a towering achievement, and I cannot believe it took me so long to find it.

I first read this novel twenty years ago and just read it agina in the lovely new Vintage edition. I am happy to say that my youthful opinion holds. This is one of the most beautiful, enthralling novels of the century. It changes one's view of how to live--of how to experience being alive. It refreshes the spirit. But not to sound mystical: It's just great reading.