Reading Robert Nathan is one of the relatively rare times when I know what it must be like to be an Anglophile-bibliophile outside of the UK. His books are pretty easy to stumble across in the US and pretty tricky to find here – but on both my visits to Washington DC, I managed to come away with a couple of his books. I bought The Enchanted Voyage in 2015 and, as luck would have it, it’s a 1936 title.
Nathan’s novels are always pretty short and whimsical, and The Enchanted Voyage is no different. The font is enormous and even so it’s something under 200 pages – telling the story of Mr Pecket, a carpenter who is disliked by his wife and cheated by his neighbours. Or perhaps ‘cheated’ isn’t the right word, since he walks open-eyed into situations where he will build shelving (say) and be hectored into being paid rather less than the value of the wood.
But, as the opening lines tell us, Mr Pecket has one eccentric passion:
Mr Hector Pecket had a boat. He had built it himself; it stood squarely on the ground in the yard of his little home in the Bronx, very far from the water. But it would scarcely have floated anywhere else, for Mr Pecket had neglected to caulk it, and it had no keel. Nevertheless inland and to the eye, it was a boat; a little like an ark, but with a mast for sailing, an anchor, a windlass, belaying pins, a cabin, and a cockpit. It was named the Sarah Pecket, after his wife.
Mrs Sarah Pecket is not sensible of having received a compliment. Rather, she would live to have some household income – and sells the boat to a neighbour to run as a restaurant. She puts wheels on it, to transport it round the corner. In another sort of novel, we would have a lot of sympathy for Mrs Pecket. But in the fanciful and carefree world of Robert Nathan’s heroes, this is a crime – and we cheer Mr Pecket on when, in the middle of the night, he commandeers the boat and sails – no, rolls – away. The wheels move him on the ground, and the sail determines his direction.
Along the way, he picks up a disaffected waitress and a curious dentist – sure, why not – and they continue to trundle along with the aim of getting to Florida. But the real aim is just to get away from everyday life – the humdrum, the unkind, and the unimaginative. This isn’t an escape from reality – their boat is slowly wheeling along the roads, not floating off into the sky – but it is an escape nonetheless. There is a sort of Peter Pan esque tone to the whole thing. Emotions are broad and simple things in Nathan’s work, but there is something touching about seeing them so close to the surface.
This reading club year is really interesting, because by 1936 it seems to have been rather an open secret that a major conflict was coming. While plenty of politicians were famously trying to avert it, you get the sense from reading books of the period that the general population would not have been enormously surprised to have found themselves in the middle of a world war a few years later – at the very least, the prospect of it was a dominating conversation. So how would the topic find its way into the novels we’re looking at this year?
This is the nearest that The Enchanted Voyage gets to contemporary commentary:
Mr Pecket walked down the street, carrying his shelves and his tools. He looked into the faces of men and women, and what he saw made him feel anxious and sad. It seemed to him that a new feeling had come into the world since he was young; that people no longer felt kindly disposed toward one another. Now that the bad times were over, and it was possible to work again, they seemed to be looking for someone to blame for everything.
You – you have a sharp look, you dress too well. Doubtless it was you who made all the trouble in the world. Well, just keep out of my way after this.
And you, over there – you have no money and no work. To the devil with you. Perhaps you are a communist.
Interestingly, he is seeing this is as a period when the Great Depression is largely over – but senses that there are difficult things on the horizon too. In context, it hammers home Mr P’s dissatisfaction with the world, but it’s still very much of its time. Those are the sorts of details I love discovering in these club years.
Is Robert Nathan great literature? No, not really – but he is reliably diverting, with a joyful imagination and I love spending time in his eccentric and sweet worlds.
This sounds a lovely read. One of my favourite films is The Straight Story, where an elderly man drives a tractor across the States to see his brother. Your review of this novel reminded me of that film, it sounds a similar gentle joy.
Oo haven’t heard of that. Sounds lovely.
I’ve just read The Thinking Reed by Rebecca West (1936) and there’s no sense of impending war in it, but by the end of the book the Depression is looming.
Ah yes, she set it a few years earlier, didn’t she?
Thanks for reminding me of Robert Nathan. I read (and even taught, years ago) A Portrait of Jennie and finally saw the film adaptation of The Bishop’s Wife this past Christmas. Being in the U.S. I should be able to find his novels in my library system.
Oh I loved The Bishop’s Wife! For my money, even better than What a Wonderful Life.
I hadn’t heard of Robert Nathan. I might look for him now.
He is very reliable, from the ones I’ve read. Happy hunting!
Sounds fascinating. The sense of a coming war is definitely big in several of the books this year.
Yes, so interesting to see how authors choose to incorporate it – and to what extent.
This sounds fun! I’ve never read anything by him–or even heard of him. By 1936 the worst of the Great Depression was receding. The WPA, the CCC, and a few other government employment programs had helped to alleviate unemployment [for the White population]. In the USA our Army was still smaller than that of Romania but in time the build-up to war led to a booming economy and Civil Rights advances in defense industry employment.
Thanks for those details, Lisa!
You are certainly right about the perspective of much of the general populous in 1936. I remember my father, at age 16, telling me about seeing the Hitler Youth in Hamburg and I am sure he had no illusions about what was happening and the likely consequences (both for himself and Britain and its allies).
I mean of course that my father was age 16! Ambiguous sentence construction :-(
How interesting! Must have been such a scary time of foreboding, particularly for men who would soon be of fighting age.
This sounds entertaining. I’ve just finished reading Keep the Aspidistra Flying and Orwell’s main character Gordon is sure that war is going to be coming soon, he can almost see their aeroplanes flying over London.
Yes!! Such a good book, too.
Gosh! I’ve never read Nathan, but this does sound quite whimsical and entertaining. And very interesting what you say about there being no real sense of impending conflict – it does seem to vary a little, depending on who you read. What the populace thought, though, is another thing…
I’ll never knock “reliably diverting” books. Sometimes, that’s exactly what you need!
This does sound a lovely little read. I wanted to re-read Aspidistra but alas ran out of time!