Scenes from a Bourgeois Life
Encyclopedia
Scenes from a Bourgeois Life is an autobiographical
novel
by the British
author Alaric Jacob
, first published in 1949.
for the paradoxes and anomalies of the author's own career. Jacob had drifted into journalism and become a Reuter's correspondent, first in London and then in Washington. He followed the war closely in North Africa, the Far East and finally in Russia where his resentment against the pursuit of wealth through industrial capitalism
, found an expression in the socialist ideals of the Soviet Union
.
The novel is written with wry humour and with Dickensian
names which lightly disguise the real people Jacob had known. It contains many amusing incidents, such as his account of losing his virginity to a bored married woman ("Madame Bovary"). It also introduces some original reflections, ranging from how easy it is for an Englishman with the right accent to seduce American girls, to an analogy between his great-great-uncle General John Jacob
and the spirit of Marxist
revolution.
The opening chapter "Post Bellum Omne Animal Triste" describes the author travelling home to England after the war in the company of "Harrington Square" the railway shunter's son who had risen to the top strata of the Foreign Service. Jacob expresses great nostalgia
for an England
which he saw becoming swamped in mediocrity, typified by the ribbon development
of the 1930s.
Jacob's father was Harold Fenton Jacob of the Indian Civil Service, sometime Political Agent
in Aden
, but was not so rich as his status might have suggested. Jacob describes his family as having devoted itself selflessly to serving the church
and the Empire
and regrets the displacement of an old order by the nouveaux riches
who have dedicated themselves to the greedy pursuit of money. This resentment showed early when young Jacob, given a place at his prep school
on reduced fees, associated with the sons of families much better off than his own.
He failed to achieve his educational potential and became a provincial journalist in the West of England. During this time the charming young man was chased successfully and unsuccessfully by older women, but tiring of this life moved to London where he lived a bohemian life in Chelsea. An interesting range of characters and liaisons crossed the screen before he met Miranda the officer's wife whose marriage had been doomed before it started. Jacob briefly saw British fascist
Oswald Mosley
's New Party, as a hope for putting England to rights, but quickly realised that the remedy was worse than the disease. Instead, concerned at the hunger marches and unemployment of the 1930s he saw his position as a gentlemen proletariat leading him to socialism.
Posted to Washington, he admired F. D. Roosevelt, but he regarded Americans in general with a mixture of fascination and distaste, particularly in the light of aggressive capitalism. The rise of the United States
, displacing the British Empire as a world power, mortified him. Being at the centre of power at the time, he presents an interesting analysis of attitudes leading up to the war.
His war reporting culminates in the USSR, where after watching the Battle of Stalingrad
he spent time in Moscow
meeting an interesting range of characters, particularly women. What impressed him was the raw spirit of commitment and involvement which he saw in Soviet Russia and the way this influenced the arts. He compared this with the stay-at-home intellectuals he knew in England, people with comfortable jobs in the BBC
and the Ministry of Information
who carried on writing as if there was no war. He particularly targeted Cyril Connolly
, another pupil at his old prep school, St Cyprian's
writing in The Unquiet Grave
under the name Palinurus
.
Jacob's final chapter "England our cow" laments the feeble socialism of the post war Labour government and the missed opportunity of Britain holding the balance of power between Russia and America rather than submission of British interests to the United States. It concludes with an empty bottle of gin.
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
author Alaric Jacob
Alaric Jacob
Harold Alaric Jacob was an English writer and journalist. He was Reuters correspondent in Washington in the 1930s, and a war correspondent during World War II in North Africa, Burma and Moscow.-Early life:...
, first published in 1949.
Summary
The book is an apologiaApologetics
Apologetics is the discipline of defending a position through the systematic use of reason. Early Christian writers Apologetics (from Greek ἀπολογία, "speaking in defense") is the discipline of defending a position (often religious) through the systematic use of reason. Early Christian writers...
for the paradoxes and anomalies of the author's own career. Jacob had drifted into journalism and become a Reuter's correspondent, first in London and then in Washington. He followed the war closely in North Africa, the Far East and finally in Russia where his resentment against the pursuit of wealth through industrial capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, found an expression in the socialist ideals of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
The novel is written with wry humour and with Dickensian
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
names which lightly disguise the real people Jacob had known. It contains many amusing incidents, such as his account of losing his virginity to a bored married woman ("Madame Bovary"). It also introduces some original reflections, ranging from how easy it is for an Englishman with the right accent to seduce American girls, to an analogy between his great-great-uncle General John Jacob
John Jacob (soldier)
Brigadier-General John Jacob CB was an officer of the British East India Company who served in colonial India for the major portion of his career...
and the spirit of Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
revolution.
The opening chapter "Post Bellum Omne Animal Triste" describes the author travelling home to England after the war in the company of "Harrington Square" the railway shunter's son who had risen to the top strata of the Foreign Service. Jacob expresses great nostalgia
Nostalgia
The term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form.The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of , meaning "returning home", a Homeric word, and , meaning "pain, ache"...
for an England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
which he saw becoming swamped in mediocrity, typified by the ribbon development
Ribbon development
Ribbon development means building houses along the routes of communications radiating from a human settlement. Such development generated great concern in the United Kingdom during the 1920s and the 1930s, as well as in numerous other countries....
of the 1930s.
Jacob's father was Harold Fenton Jacob of the Indian Civil Service, sometime Political Agent
Political Resident
In the British Empire a Political Resident or Political Agent was an official diplomatic position involving both consular duties and liaison function....
in Aden
Aden
Aden is a seaport city in Yemen, located by the eastern approach to the Red Sea , some 170 kilometres east of Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000. Aden's ancient, natural harbour lies in the crater of an extinct volcano which now forms a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a...
, but was not so rich as his status might have suggested. Jacob describes his family as having devoted itself selflessly to serving the church
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
and the Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
and regrets the displacement of an old order by the nouveaux riches
Nouveau riche
The nouveau riche , or new money, comprise those who have acquired considerable wealth within their own generation...
who have dedicated themselves to the greedy pursuit of money. This resentment showed early when young Jacob, given a place at his prep school
Preparatory school (UK)
In English language usage in the former British Empire, the present-day Commonwealth, a preparatory school is an independent school preparing children up to the age of eleven or thirteen for entry into fee-paying, secondary independent schools, some of which are known as public schools...
on reduced fees, associated with the sons of families much better off than his own.
He failed to achieve his educational potential and became a provincial journalist in the West of England. During this time the charming young man was chased successfully and unsuccessfully by older women, but tiring of this life moved to London where he lived a bohemian life in Chelsea. An interesting range of characters and liaisons crossed the screen before he met Miranda the officer's wife whose marriage had been doomed before it started. Jacob briefly saw British fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
Oswald Mosley
Oswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists...
's New Party, as a hope for putting England to rights, but quickly realised that the remedy was worse than the disease. Instead, concerned at the hunger marches and unemployment of the 1930s he saw his position as a gentlemen proletariat leading him to socialism.
English snobbery, which seems to foreigners at once ludicrous and pathetic, is in reality a mighty force which adroitly handled, could be turned to revolutionary ends. There are many ways to socialism; the snob’s way may be the English way. The American worker is ambitious to own the factory he works in. The English worker desires to become a gentleman who, only incidentally owns the factory. Once let him feel that such ownership is incompatible with the status of gentleman, and factory-owning would cease to be a respectable occupation. For though the word gentleman does not exist in French, and is rarely used in the American language, it is with us a master-word which unlocks many a closed English cupboard. Immemorial usage has given it an almost mystical quality. Woe to him who debases its sovereign gravity in the coinage of English words.
The English do not really love a lord. What they love is the principle that originally lay behind ennoblement. This was to impose a standard above that of mere wealth by rewarding outstanding services to the crown, which preceded the nation-state as the unifier in men’s lives, by admission to the orders of chivalry. It is foolish in foreigners to sneer at the Englishman for loving titles when this reveals a reverence for something higher than money. In practice robber-barons may have become viscounts, knavish viscounts earls, and so upwards, but the process only became finally ridiculous when it was extended beyond the owners of acres and peasant “souls” to the owners of pieces of machinery and shafts of coal. At this point the Englishman, seeing chivalric values being debased, clung to one standard that he felt still rang true – what was, and was not done by a gentleman. And more often than not his definition of gentleman was one who “puts more into life than he takes out of it”. Which comes very close to the quality which Lenin required from the knightly missionaries of his Communist Society.”
Posted to Washington, he admired F. D. Roosevelt, but he regarded Americans in general with a mixture of fascination and distaste, particularly in the light of aggressive capitalism. The rise of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, displacing the British Empire as a world power, mortified him. Being at the centre of power at the time, he presents an interesting analysis of attitudes leading up to the war.
“Then there’s really no hope of getting American weight on to our side of the scale until the shooting actually starts?”
“Probably not,” said Harrington, crushing his Melba toast into a handful of dust.
A little man with a yellow complexion and wearing inexpensive, steel-rimmed glasses came and sat down at our table.
“Our young friend here,” he said indicating me, “is a regular fire-eater. Most Englishmen here give the impression that Hitler is just a vulgar fellow but he really seems to feel that he’s a s----.” And out came a raw, four-letter word.
“I get the impression” said Harrington, “that many Americans hate Hitler more than we do because they have fixed hatred as the limit of their responsibility in the matter, Whereas we shall have to both hate him and fight him.”
“You are right,” said the little man, sliding off towards an adjoining table. “But do be sure, whatever war you get into, that it is really the right one.”
Harrington asked me who the man was.
“Constantine Oumansky, the Soviet Ambassador”.
His war reporting culminates in the USSR, where after watching the Battle of Stalingrad
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 23 August 1942 and 2 February 1943...
he spent time in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
meeting an interesting range of characters, particularly women. What impressed him was the raw spirit of commitment and involvement which he saw in Soviet Russia and the way this influenced the arts. He compared this with the stay-at-home intellectuals he knew in England, people with comfortable jobs in the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
and the Ministry of Information
Ministry of Information
The term Ministry of Information may refer to the following:* Ministry of Information , part of the Cabinet of Egypt* Ministry of Information , part of the Cabinet of Equatorial Guinea...
who carried on writing as if there was no war. He particularly targeted Cyril Connolly
Cyril Connolly
Cyril Vernon Connolly was an English intellectual, literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine Horizon and wrote Enemies of Promise , which combined literary criticism with an autobiographical exploration of why he failed to become the successful author of...
, another pupil at his old prep school, St Cyprian's
St Cyprian's School
St Cyprian's School was an English preparatory school for boys, which operated in the early 20th century in Eastbourne, East Sussex. Like other preparatory schools, its purpose was to train pupils to do well enough in the examinations to gain admission to leading public schools, and to provide an...
writing in The Unquiet Grave
The Unquiet Grave (book)
The Unquiet Grave is a literary work by Cyril Connolly written in 1944 under the pseudonym Palinurus. It comprises a collection of aphorisms, quotes, nostalgic musings and mental explorations....
under the name Palinurus
Palinurus
Palinurus, in Roman mythology, is the helmsman of a ship of the Trojan hero Aeneas, whose descendants would one day found the city of Rome. As the price for the safe passage of Aeneas and his people from Sicily to Italy, Palinurus loses his life, one on behalf of many Palinurus, in Roman mythology,...
.
- On the same page on which he empties these dregs of his despair, Palinurus vows that there can be no going back to Christianity. People cannot be expected to revert to threadbare myths, he implies. They demand new ones.
- "Communism," says he, "is the new religion which denies original sin. Yet seldom do we meet a Communist who as a man seems either complete or happy.”
- Oh the ignorance of the sophisticated person who thinks all the best thoughts! Is there anything in the wide world to equal it?
- The one place in all my travels where I met men and women who seemed complete and happy was in Russia, in the darkest days of the war. In Russia I encountered a character long missing from the world which Palinurus and I once shared. The Hero. I put my hand on the shoulders of such men. They were real. We in the West had written off the type as the obsession of that dead bore Carlyle. But now the Hero was resurrected and in this war he spoke in the Slavonic tongues. I do not mean that Russian bravery was superior to English bravery – the boy Matrosov who silenced a machine gun by thrusting his own body into its embrasure was perhaps less imaginative but not more courageous than the British soldiers who knowingly went to their deaths in obsolete tanks. I refer not to bravery at all but to the heroic view of life which departed from English society long before the war and never returned during it. Never returned because, I think, it would not in any case have been in keeping with the kind of war we fought. We fought to survive. We fought not to win a new world but to keep the old one. And in any case there were two wars. I saw both of them. In the West a relatively gentlemanly affair, with quarter given and prisoners cared for; in the East, an inferno of unrestricted extermination.
Jacob's final chapter "England our cow" laments the feeble socialism of the post war Labour government and the missed opportunity of Britain holding the balance of power between Russia and America rather than submission of British interests to the United States. It concludes with an empty bottle of gin.