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Apr. 14th, 2019 09:35 amPeople who follow me on Twitter may remember that when I was a few chapters away from the thrilling conclusion of The Singer Not the Song, I temporarily lost my copy of the book and went into a full-blown tailspin about it.
As you know, the book eventually turned up safe and sound, but it turned out in the end to be a blessing because without that panic, I never would have gone to look up local libraries in the faint hope that they might have acquired some more Audrey Erskine Lindop since my first time searching several years ago -- and in fact they had! Specifically, they had acquired Sight Unseen (1969), the back copy of which reads:
Everybody wanted to play Brian Touhey's life for him:
His fiancee wanted him to stay sober and paint "sober" pictures.
His fiancee's mother wanted him to find another fiancee.
His "Beau Brummel" cousin wanted him to be a successful businessman.
His cat, Dogberry, wanted him to give up women completely and serve fresh fish more often.
But none of them worked quite as hard for what they wanted as Colonel Hawkins. And he wanted to lock Bryan away in a gloomy old house on Romney Marsh -- where Bryan could drink and paint; where he could put down on canvas the phantasmagoria of his alcohol soaked brain; where he could die...
For the record, I remember clearly that I acquired this book the day before St. Patrick's Day, because I went to chorus practice and forced![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sovay to look at the back cover, and then went to a St. Patrick's Day party and forced everybody there to look at the back cover as well because it delighted me so much.
Based on this cover and the experience of The Singer Not the Song, I felt it was not unreasonable for me to expect this book to be an extremely homoerotic boy-meets-house Gothic. Which it ... sort of is? And I want to be clear: it's not quite as gay as The Singer Not the Song (but then, what could be.) The emotional dynamic is more like a version of the main triangle in Gilda with Gilda and Johnnie's roles reversed: an older man becomes obsessed with a younger man, and sets him up with a young woman who's obsessed with him (the older man) in a situation where they can't help but also become a little obsessed with each other, and it's all going to resolve in either threesome or murder.
The plot:
Brian is a fairly terrible young man who owns a failing antiques shop, which he lies and says is haunted to see if it will turn out in an uptick in sales. (It doesn't.) He also paints intense, creepy paintings, but only when he's drunk. He also has a semi-hemi-demi fiancee whom everyone including the reader is clearly meant to find a bit boring, so it's a pity that approximately the first half of the book involves a lot of will-they-won't-they about their clearly doomed relationship. (The fiancee's mother, on the other hand, who hates Brian with the passion of a thousand suns, is absolutely great and I'm so sad she disappears from the book.)
Anyway, Colonel Hawkins comes across Brian's art and promptly decides that he can make Brian's Extremely Valuable, possibly by spreading rumors that he's possessed by a painting ghost. Or maybe Brian is possessed by a painting ghost!
As in any good Gothic, Brian is immediately suspicious of Hawkins but also compelled by him:
It occurred to me that it was only when I was out of Hawkins' company that I thought him so sinister. When I was with him I felt stimulated and oddly soothed by that cool voice.
Colonel Hawkins, by the way, also has a tragic backstory involving the imaginary painting ghost:
"Who was 'Darling, darling Laura'?" I asked.
"The only person I have ever met whose work bore the smallest resemblance to yours."
"Oh, she painted?"
"He did."
There the conversation ended as Hawkins had no obvious intention of continuing it.
Hawkins, by the way, himself paints technically well enough to arouse Brian's deep envy, but despises his own work:
BRIAN: "If you can touch me up, why don't you paint like that yourself?"
HAWKINS: "Because I can only touch you up and not paint like that myself unless I copy you."
Along the way Brian is adopted by a stray cat, which promptly becomes the most important relationship in his life, and also a means by which Hawkins can further exert control: Brian has accidentally tripped over Dogberry the cat and now Dogberry is mad at him! HAWKINS, CAT WHISPERER, IS THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN HELP HIM COAX DOGBERRY TO EAT. I suspect I am not the only one who find this a pleasant piece of thematic repetition in Lindop's work.
Inevitably, Colonel Hawkins decides that Brian's fiancee is a Bad Influence on his work and sends him off to stay ( in his sinister mansion! spoilers through the end )
As you know, the book eventually turned up safe and sound, but it turned out in the end to be a blessing because without that panic, I never would have gone to look up local libraries in the faint hope that they might have acquired some more Audrey Erskine Lindop since my first time searching several years ago -- and in fact they had! Specifically, they had acquired Sight Unseen (1969), the back copy of which reads:
Everybody wanted to play Brian Touhey's life for him:
His fiancee wanted him to stay sober and paint "sober" pictures.
His fiancee's mother wanted him to find another fiancee.
His "Beau Brummel" cousin wanted him to be a successful businessman.
His cat, Dogberry, wanted him to give up women completely and serve fresh fish more often.
But none of them worked quite as hard for what they wanted as Colonel Hawkins. And he wanted to lock Bryan away in a gloomy old house on Romney Marsh -- where Bryan could drink and paint; where he could put down on canvas the phantasmagoria of his alcohol soaked brain; where he could die...
For the record, I remember clearly that I acquired this book the day before St. Patrick's Day, because I went to chorus practice and forced
sovay to look at the back cover, and then went to a St. Patrick's Day party and forced everybody there to look at the back cover as well because it delighted me so much.Based on this cover and the experience of The Singer Not the Song, I felt it was not unreasonable for me to expect this book to be an extremely homoerotic boy-meets-house Gothic. Which it ... sort of is? And I want to be clear: it's not quite as gay as The Singer Not the Song (but then, what could be.) The emotional dynamic is more like a version of the main triangle in Gilda with Gilda and Johnnie's roles reversed: an older man becomes obsessed with a younger man, and sets him up with a young woman who's obsessed with him (the older man) in a situation where they can't help but also become a little obsessed with each other, and it's all going to resolve in either threesome or murder.
The plot:
Brian is a fairly terrible young man who owns a failing antiques shop, which he lies and says is haunted to see if it will turn out in an uptick in sales. (It doesn't.) He also paints intense, creepy paintings, but only when he's drunk. He also has a semi-hemi-demi fiancee whom everyone including the reader is clearly meant to find a bit boring, so it's a pity that approximately the first half of the book involves a lot of will-they-won't-they about their clearly doomed relationship. (The fiancee's mother, on the other hand, who hates Brian with the passion of a thousand suns, is absolutely great and I'm so sad she disappears from the book.)
Anyway, Colonel Hawkins comes across Brian's art and promptly decides that he can make Brian's Extremely Valuable, possibly by spreading rumors that he's possessed by a painting ghost. Or maybe Brian is possessed by a painting ghost!
As in any good Gothic, Brian is immediately suspicious of Hawkins but also compelled by him:
It occurred to me that it was only when I was out of Hawkins' company that I thought him so sinister. When I was with him I felt stimulated and oddly soothed by that cool voice.
Colonel Hawkins, by the way, also has a tragic backstory involving the imaginary painting ghost:
"Who was 'Darling, darling Laura'?" I asked.
"The only person I have ever met whose work bore the smallest resemblance to yours."
"Oh, she painted?"
"He did."
There the conversation ended as Hawkins had no obvious intention of continuing it.
Hawkins, by the way, himself paints technically well enough to arouse Brian's deep envy, but despises his own work:
BRIAN: "If you can touch me up, why don't you paint like that yourself?"
HAWKINS: "Because I can only touch you up and not paint like that myself unless I copy you."
Along the way Brian is adopted by a stray cat, which promptly becomes the most important relationship in his life, and also a means by which Hawkins can further exert control: Brian has accidentally tripped over Dogberry the cat and now Dogberry is mad at him! HAWKINS, CAT WHISPERER, IS THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN HELP HIM COAX DOGBERRY TO EAT. I suspect I am not the only one who find this a pleasant piece of thematic repetition in Lindop's work.
Inevitably, Colonel Hawkins decides that Brian's fiancee is a Bad Influence on his work and sends him off to stay ( in his sinister mansion! spoilers through the end )
