Subject: MR PYE, by Mervyn Peake (SPOILERS)

From: [email-masked] (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Date: 28 Sep 92 22:16:27 GMT

Those of us familiar with Mervyn Peake (1911-1968) at all, are
generally familiar only with his trilogy of fantasy grotesques, TITUS
GROAN, GORMENGHAST, TITUS ALONE.  He was, however, the author of
numerous other books, as well as an illustrator popular in his native
Britain (though hardly known here), a poet, a playwright, and several
other things.

Some while ago, Overlook Press released a collection of his
illustrations and writings entitled PEAKE'S PROGRESS, which, frankly,
whetted appetites but did not satisfy them.  Overlook has also
published an excellent edition of the "gormenghastlies," with carefully
corrected texts (the usual American text of TITUS ALONE is badly
corrupt) and the existing portion of a fourth book Peake never
completed.

Their program of printing Peake also includes an edition of the last
Peake ever completed, MR PYE, an odd book indeed.  I only ran across
this recently, thus the rather late review, but it is still available
at the price shown above (I called Overlook to check), which is quite a
bargain for a hardcover book these days.

The short review:  

I ordered a copy for myself, after having read it free.

The long review:

MR PYE is the story of a man too good for his own benefit.  He arrives,
with no warning or preamble, on Sark, in the Channel Islands, and
proceeds with a plan he has evidently been evolving for some time, of
bringing the gifts of peace and love to the inhabitants.  He himself is
clearly a minor saint, and his success at ending long-standing feuds,
producing minor miracles of change in human behavior, and so forth,
leave no doubt in the reader's mind that Mr Pye is capable of doing
just what he has set out to do.

God (whom Mr Pye calls "Our Great Pal") apparently approves of Mr Pye's
activities also, and -- to Mr Pye's horror -- proceeds to grant Mr Pye
an outward sign of this approval:  wings begin growing from his
shoulders.  This, Mr Pye decides, will not do at all; his success in
leading the Sarkese to virtue is entirely dependent upon his ability to
relate to them as human-to-human.

So -- having first satisfied himself by visits to various Harley street 
specialists that this visitation is not medically explicable or curable
-- he sets out upon a program of sin, all the while concealing the
growths from the Sarkese.  The program works all to well, as something
else begins to grow from his forehead. . .

One would think the rest of the plot would be quite predictable from
here, but it isn't, largely because of an element I've ignored to this
point: the inhabitants of Sark.  Individually and collectively, they're
as fine a set of characters as the inhabitants of Gormenghast, and,
while not as exaggerated, quite as thoroughly individuated and
interrelated.  There are the Laurel-and- Hardy team of Miss Dredger (Mr
Pye's landlady) and Mrs George, one thin as her perpetual cigarettes,
the other grossly fat, the healing of whose feud is Mr Pye's first
tangible victory in his battle for the souls of Sark.  There is Thorpe,
the seascape painter, ineffectual but likeable.  There is Tintagieu,
the island's only prostitute, a weird combination of sin and innocence,
who is ultimately the means of Mr Pye's deliverance from the raging mob
of Sarkese.

For the climax, rather different from anything I had anticipated, is
taken from the Frankenstein tradition:  the Sarkese, enraged at what Mr
Pye has become while attempting to rid himself of both wings and horns,
storm Miss Dredger's home and attempt to take him by force.  Tintagieu,
one of the few people Mr Pye seems ultimately to "save," hides him --
in the island's prison! -- until his wings have grown enough to let him
fly away from Sark forever.

Peake tells his story in a style rather unlike that of the Gormenghast
books, and as appropriate to this simpler tale as the heavy
polysyllables and convolute syntax were to the more lugubrious work.
MR PYE is charming, thoughtful, and very quick.

The parallels to the Christ story are both obvious and, I should say,
intentional, but in no way obtrusive.  A slightly stranger parallel
that kept forcing itself into my consciousness as I read was to THE
SATANIC VERSES, published 25 years later, whose protagonists are
troubled with "growths" like those which so bother Mr Pye.  The humor
of Peake, too, reminded me of that in TSV, though (of course) much
gentler, much milder.  Claiming influence is a dangerous game; I will
merely say that I would be not at all surprised if I were to learn that
Salman Rushdie were a fan of Mervyn Peake.

All in all, I recommend MR PYE heartily.

%A   Peake, Mervyn
%T   Mr Pye
%I   The Overlook Press
%C   Woodstock, NY
%D   1984 (original edition 1953)
%G   ISBN 0-87951-955-X
%O   US$15.95
%O   order from Overlook Press, Lewis Hollow Road, Woodstock, NY 12498
%P   278pp.