Gallico

When I was grabbing a book for the train down to Somerset, I decided upon Jennie by Paul Gallico. I bought it nearly three years ago, and have had numerous recommendations for it – especially from the appropriately nicknamed Dark Puss. After recently loving Love of Seven Dolls (more here) it seemed sensible to try more Gallico – with the bonus that Jennie would fit into the themes of my doctoral research even if, published in 1950, it’s a little too late for my period of study.

And I decided, since I was at home, it would be nice for Sherpa to pose sitting alongside my copy of Jennie. Sherpa had other ideas… as documented through this post.

There is a very simple story behind Jennie – an eight years-old boy called Peter suddenly discovers that he has turned into a cat. As you do. Unlike metamorphosis tales like Lady Into Fox, the novel isn’t focalised through those who witness the change – nor do we witness Peter trying to live alongside his family as a cat. They are quickly left behind, as Nanny throws him into the street (“Drat the child! He’s dragged in another stray off the street! Shoo! Scat! Get out!”) Peter dashes through the streets, is beaten unconscious by a territorial cat who doesn’t want to share his shelter, and by the time Peter comes to, he is in the company of Jennie.
Peter rolled over and behled the speaker squatted down comfortably beside him, her legs tucked under her, tail nicely wrapped around. She was a thin tabby with a part white face and throat that gave her a most sweet and gentle aspect heightened by the lively and kind expression in her luminous eyes that were grey-green, flecked with gold.
Jennie gives him a bath and a mouse (‘To his intense surprise, it was simply delicious’) and sets about teaching Peter how to be a cat – as, after a little hesitation, she believes his account of how he became a cat.

It is this vein of Jennie which gives it both its charm and somehow rescues it from being too fey or whimsical. Gallico captures the behaviour of cats so exactly (the first rule, at all times: WASH). If he’d kept an eye on the human observers, laughing at how cats misunderstood such-and-such, or inventing witty reasons for cats behaving so-and-so, then Jennie might well have been unbearable. Instead, it is… well, ‘realistic’ is hardly the word, but Gallico shows Jennie in as workmanlike a manner as possible under the circumstances. Her explanations of how strays must loiter in every doorway when exiting, to check the street for safety, make sense. The way she uses humans, and doesn’t trust them, chimes in with many of the timid cats one sees on the streets. I didn’t love the idea of cats greeting one another with faux-18th century decorum, nor the idea of some sort of feline telepathy, but in general Gallico didn’t overstep the mark.

Sylvia Townsend Warner, who wrote her own fantasy in the form of Lolly Willowes, said this in a 1929 lecture:
Since [the fantasist’s] main thesis surprises by itself, he must deny himself further surprises…. The novelist not only may niggle away with small licences all the time, he is a dull dog if he doesn’t. But the fantasist, having taken his initial liberty, must mind his Ps and Qs for the rest of his adventure…. The fantasist who has begun by asking for one vast initial credit must do on that credit to the end.Well said, Sylvia. And Gallico is almost always content to let the turning-into-a-cat liberty be the main one. True, there are some unlikely dramatic incidences as they board a ship to Glasgow, and Gallico sprinkles coincidences through the novel like nobody’s business, but…

When I wrote about Love of Seven Dolls I mentioned that it had something of the atmosphere of a fairy-tale – which didn’t hinder the pathos, but rather made the evil streak of the novel less striking. Jennie is even more like a fairy-tale – in fact, at times it felt like a Disney film. The characters are drawn with surprising reality, but the events are not. Easily the most interesting chapters were those where Peter was learning how to be a cat, or contemplating the relationship between owner and pet. I was less interested when merry escapades took over, and there is one spectacularly superfluous chapter about Lulu – an excitable, flirty, irreverent cat with whom Peter is briefly smitten. I think Gallico perhaps felt his initial conceit was flagging a bit, and so introduced this little ball of fire – but Lulu sticks out so obviously as a distraction to enliven proceedings that I feel she should either have arrived much earlier, or not been introduced at all.

It is the plotting and tone which made Jennie a bit of a disappointment to me. The characters of Jennie and Peter are great – and, as I’ve said, Gallico has really closely observed cat behaviour. But the tone is too sprightly, even with the sad aspects of the story. What I loved in Love of Seven Dolls was the dark, subversive tone intertwining with the whimsical. If Jennie doesn’t become too whimsical, it also never wanders into darker territory – it felt a lot like a children’s tale which wouldn’t stray too far from an accessible storytime-voice.

It is a really fun novel to read, and I’m sure a similar idea has been done much worse. But Lady Into Fox demonstrates how subtle and moving the metamorphosis novel can be; Love of Seven Dolls shows Gallico is capable of more – Jennie just didn’t live up to the hopeful expectations it had accumulated after three years on my bookshelf. But do give it a go – it might be just the novel you’re after.

Well, I didn’t finish any other books on my second day of novella reading. It was quite a busy day, what with church and a talk by Henrietta Garnett (more on that soon) and I also fell asleep at 9pm, in the middle of Saki’s The Unbearable Bassington. Then I woke up at half midnight… and went to sleep again at 5am. Not best pleased with my head and its ideas about sleep cycles, but I’m hoping to be back to normal tonight.

Paul Gallico’s Love of Seven Dolls seemed to raise the most interest, of the novellas I have mentioned, and I also said I’d lend it to Verity tomorrow – so I’ll get writing about it right away!

35. Love of Seven Dolls – Paul Gallico

As I mentioned at the weekend, I haven’t read anything else by Gallico – so this might be a case of me later wishing I’d chosen something else by him – but I’m going to go out on a limb and put Love of Seven Dolls on my 50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About. I suppose it’s one that doesn’t get mentioned much in the blogosphere. Jane (aka Fleur Fisher) has written a lovely, compelling review of it here, but I must confess I hadn’t remembered her review when I picked up Love of Seven Dolls in Oxfam a few weeks ago. (Indeed, I’d forgotten that I’d read Jane’s review until I read my comment on it just now! So many blogs read does addle my brain somewhat…)

Right, let’s kick off. We’re in Paris, and Marelle (known as Mouche – ‘fly’) is off to drown herself in the Seine. Orphaned, she came from Brittany to make it as a singer, dancer, or (if that failed) rely on more worldly assets. But she has met with no success at any of these pursuits (‘Mouche excited pity rather than desire’) and – terribly hungry, sad, and alone – she decides to end it all.

Not the cheeriest start for a story, but you’ll be pleased to know that she is interrupted – by a doll in a puppet booth. Carrot Top gets into conversation with her, steering her away from the Seine. He, supposedly, manages the others – and is caring and wry. He is only the first of the dolls to make Mouche’s acquaintance – there are six others, each beguiling in the extreme. There’s Ali the gentle, rather stupid, giant; vain Gigi; pompous Dr. Duclos the penguin; maternal Madame Muscat; Monsieur Nicholas the mender of toys, and listener to woes. And then there’s my favourite of all – crafty, wily Reynardo – who is, of course, a fox.

In her naivety, without truly believing the puppets to be real, Mouche talks with them. Her ingenuous nature – for her conversations are not forced or false – soon draws passers-by, and she becomes part of the puppeteer’s act. But, lest this sound too whimsical for your tastes, let me assure you it is nothing of the kind. For here is the puppeteer:
It was like a chill hand laid upon her heart, for there was no warmth or kindliness in the figure lounging against the pole, his fists pressed deeply into the pockets of his jacket. The shine of his eyes was hostile and the droop of the cigarette from his lips contemptuous.

Mouche, in her marrow, knew that this was the puppet-master, the man who had animated the little creatures who had laid such an enchantment upon her, yet she was filled with dread. For a moment even she hoped that somehow this was not he, the master of the dolls, but some other, a pitch-man, a labourer, or lounger from a neighbouring concession.
How can this man be the voices of such endearing puppets? Well, it seems he is not entirely sure himself:

For in spite of the fact that it was he who sat behind the one-way curtain in the booth, animated them, and supplied their seven voices, the puppets frequently acted as strangely and determinedly as individuals over whom he had no control. Michel never had bothered to reflect greatly over this phenomenon but had simply accepted it as something that was so and which, far from interfering with the kind of life he was accustomed to living, brought him a curious kind of satisfaction.

Once Mouche has joined the troupe, a pattern sets in. Michel is increasingly cruel and violent, desperate to remove her innocence through any means possible; the puppets are kind and restorative. Gallico creates a kind of mad cacophony – the magical enchantment of endearing puppets; the bitterness of a cruel man; the emotions of a girl who is experiencing both the greatest loneliness and the greatest friendships of her life. There is never the suggestion that Mouche is mad, and the reader accepts unquestioned her relationship with Reynardo, Carrot Top and the others. At the same time, somehow, Michel’s cruelties – though sad – are not deeply unsettling, nor even as shocking as they should be. Is it the fairy-talesque tones which thread throughout the narrative? I think it must be. Gallico, after all, draws from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and Beauty and the Beast. The evil stepmother’s behaviour, in the former tale, does not shock us in the way that it would in a modern novel. Love of Seven Dolls is not a fairy-tale, but it borrows some of the atmosphere of them.

The story is bizarre, but it is not bewildering. Gallico weaves together the dark and light so skillfully that they do not jar – nor does either take precedence. We aren’t permitted to rest upon either, and are pulled along for the strange, captivating experience.

All the while, reading this novella, I thought that it would make a brilliant film – perhaps one with Tim Burton at the helm. Only after I’d finished did I investigate the history of Love of Seven Dolls. Gallico wrote a story called ‘The Man Who Hated People’ (1950), which was adapted into the film Lili (1953). Only then did Gallico complete the circle, after the success of the film: rewriting and extending the story to become the novella I have in my hands.

Love of Seven Dolls exemplifies many of the reasons I cherish novellas over longer works. There is no need for extemporaneous matter when a writer can create such a powerful and complex work in under a hundred pages. It really is an extraordinary little book, written so cleverly and compellingly. Do seek it out, if you possibly can – and Gallico has also been favoured with many beautiful covers. The top one is my copy; the other images I’ve tracked down online – aren’t they great?