Master Georgie - Beryl Brainbridge

"Beryl, was on another level
( Beryl, every time they’d overlook her )
( Beryl, the tobacco overtook her )          
When she got a Booker medal
She was dead in her grave
After all she gave       
It’s too late, you dabblers
It’s all too late"           
                 ("Beryl" - Mark Knopfler)

     
 Five times the Bridesmaid, but never the Bride. When she did become "The Bride", "she was dead in the grave". Posthumously "they" did award her a Booker, a special award to the one they thought was the best among her five nominees, which "Master Georgie" managed to win." Master Georgie,  was, somewhat obviously, the book chosen to read.  I, myself heard of Beryl through Knopfler's song, , from his amazing 2015 album, Tracker.( Mark Knopfler performing "Beryl", with an afterword about the Authoress )

It is a book of concise length, running not much more than 200 pages. A novel based on the Victorian times, we find the four main characters in the forsaken fields of the Crimean War, half way through book. The descriptions on the fields of war are gory, misery-stricken and somewhat grotesque. Yet, the reader feels, as if the author has made an effort, to make the incidents appear everyday, unattached and with a sense of passivity. While Suffering is common in such a place as a war field, those who are not injured, or their closest not injured, or dead, would find their days rolling amidst the misfortune and misery of others and the wheels keep turning. The narration style with respect to the misery, reminded me of Auden's poem,

"About suffering they were never wrong,The old Masters: how well they understoodIts human position: how it takes placeWhile someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along"

For example feel the sense of the unattached in the following extract: 

"They carried in a drummer boy a few nights back. He was not above twelve years of age and had been put to work in the trenches, there being so many casualties. In the act of shovelling up dirt, body bent and his right hand holding the handle of the spade, he was struck by a round shot which passed between his legs, laid bare an artery and ripped off his cock and scrotum. They hadn't been able to bring him in right away owing to the ambulance wagon getting stuck in the mud. He was put on the table, where he jerked like a fish on the hook"

The misery is present, but the pain is dilute as the narrator - one of three in this novel -  Pompey Jones, ( a street urchin from London and a  gay lover of George's through strange circumstance, who makes good and turn up at the Crimean war front, as a photographer - an art he learned from Georgie - himself an enthusiast), tells us this unbearable story. This passivity is not something confined to this narrator - Myrtle, an adopted member of the Hardy family, hopelessly in love with George, so much so that she had won him over from his other orientation at times, has a similar tone when she recounts, thus:

"A single beam of sunlight pierced the branches, framing in shimmering silver the outline of a man standing in the middle of the path. As we drew nearer he made no attempt to step out of our way and we were forced to rein in the horses. He stood with his arms wrapped about himself, as though he was cold, and stared past us. Following the direction of his petrified gaze, I swivelled in the saddle and looked behind. The country boy still sat with his back to the tree, only now the pink had quite gone from his cheeks and his skin was mottled, like meat lain too long on the slab. He hadn’t eaten all the cherries; flies crawled along his fingers and buzzed at his mouth. There’s a sameness about death that makes the emotions stiffen – which is for the best, else one would be uselessly crying the day long. "

But this atmosphere of being distanced and unattached, to the horror and misery on the ground, is but only one aspect of the novel. From page 1, the book moves forward at  quite a trot, and if one is not careful, one can miss an important part, for these are not given prominence, in the matter of fact narration,  but appear within the same dense roll-on, with a minimum fuss. The authoress herself has apparently stated that this book needs to be read three times to comprehend ( I didn't - I think I grasped most, in a slow single read, for I do not have time or the effort for three readings of a novel ).  For example, the real connection between Myrtle and George Hardy, is mentioned with the least amount of emphasis.

The third narrator is George's philosophical and Libidinous Brother-in-Law,  His narrations are that much more analytical, and I found gives the book an essence of weight against, the somewhat passive tones of Myrtle and Pompey Jones - for both of whom it is only the personal accounts which carry weight. For Potter, it is a comparison against history. In this sense too the authoress appear to have chosen her narrators carefully to give it an overall balance. There is also automatically a fourth point of view- that reads the accounts of Myrtle, Pompey Jones and Potter, constructs George Hardy from therein and builds a bird's eye view of the total narration. That is of the Reader - you and me. Note that George, the main subject is never the narrator. We see him through the eyes of three people, related to George in various degrees of affection and guilt. Through the eyes of the street urchin, who is grateful for what has been done for him, yet grudges the ever present disrespect ; through the eyes of Myrtle, in whose eyes "Master Georgie" can do no wrong, and who is ready to do absolutely anything for him. And Potter, who regards Georgie as a tempestuous fool, a feeling somewhat similar to how George regards Potter, except for the tempestuous part, with pomposity replacing the adjective. 

This is not an easy breeze of a read. It is a novel with many a technique of the art condensed, a dense narration and with a subject matter as painful as can be, but painted with a brush, at times  nonchalant, and  at others brazen, but almost never emotional,  If there is anything missing, it is the emotions, and I am quite convinced that this is not a defect . Sure, there will be much of that on the reader's minds as she constructs the full picture. But the distanced feel that the authoress gives out through the narration reminded me  of Hemingway, especially on "Farewell to Arms". Virginia Woolf's method of narration, as she employed in Jacob's Room can be detected too, but it has to be conceded that "Georgie" is much much more present in these accounts, than Jacob ever was.