Thirkell, Death, Greek Play and Pageants again

August Folly by Angela Thirkell

published 1936

Excerpt:  When Laurence got to the bean rows he found Mr Phipps sitting on a wheelbarrow eating bread and cheese.

‘Morning, Phipps,’ he said. ‘A bit early for dinner, isn’t it?’

‘A man like me as works in graveyards has to get his bite when he can,’ said Mr Phipps.

‘Much doing in the graveyard line?’ asked Laurence as he picked French beans.

‘Worst season I’ve ever known, sir, and I’ve lived in these parts nearly 70 year and been sexton 33,’ said Mr Phipps. ‘Not a soul nor a body for three month. Seems like there’s a curse on that new bit of ground the bishop consecrated last summer. Can’t get no one to make a beginning… Cremation’s the trouble, sir. To my mind it’s against nature, but these young people they like a bit of life and you can’t stop ‘em.’

‘Not much life in cremation, I should have thought.’

‘It’s this way, sir. It  means a nice outing to Woking in a motor-coach for the friends and relations. You can’t blame them for liking their bit of fun. I was the same when I was a young fellow. I’d think nothing of walking to the county jail, a matter of 15 miles each way, to stand outside the day a man was hung. But I’m not what I was.’

‘Well I hope you’ll live to see the hoodoo taken off the new burying-ground,’ said Laurence.

‘Thank you kindly, sir,’ said Mr Phipps, brightening up. ‘Maybe I’ll be the first myself. It wouldn’t look bad on my stone, “He was the first”.’

‘”That ever burst”’, said Laurence mechanically, which made the gardener burst into a cackle and say she’d tell his old woman that.

 

 

observations: The blogpost on pageants produced, as I hoped, a splendid list of suggestions in the comments. Staunch blogfriend Shay mentioned this book, Angela Thirkell’s August Folly, as having ‘something that seems to be more than a play if not less than a pageant.’ I couldn’t instantly identify this one – as I said to Shay, ‘most of them could be called August Folly from the content’ – but as soon as I opened it I thought ‘ah yes, the Greek Play’. Reading Thirkell is always the same for me: she is very entertaining and easy to read, but I get impatient as I go along, and her snobbery and conservatism annoy me. But then there will be a passage that almost redeems her – I absolutely loved this tiny scene, unexpected and very funny, and somehow reminiscent of the poems of AE Housman, and also of the splendid Hugh Kingsmill parody (of Housman) which starts

What, still alive at twenty-two,

A clean, upstanding chap like you?

Sure, if your throat 'tis hard to slit,

Slit your girl's, and swing for it.

 

The Greek Play itself in the book – encompassing the whole village, nobs and working people alike, and indeed very pageant-like  – is a good vehicle for multiple jokes and plot complications and costumes. Such an event is hard to imagine, and harder to imagine organizing, but they were obviously a thing. See also Helen McCloy’s marvellous Through a Glass Darkly, set in an upmarket American girls’ school.

The picture – and it is possible that the affair in the book did not look quite so accomplished and have such good lines – shows modern dance pioneer Ruth St Denis and others in Greek Veil Plastique. It is from the NYPL, part of an excellent archive. The dance company was called Denishawn, and legendary actress Louise Brooks got her start there – all featured in this blogpost. And also in this one – another picture of Ruth St Denis in this production made the perfect picture for Topaz’s dress in I Capture the Castle. I was extremely happy with the matchup.

The other picture is from the National Library of Wales via Wikimedia Commons and shows Dick Nancy, a gravedigger from Ruthin in North Wales.