The Coast of Bohemia
I'm reading another collection of Thackeray potboilers that include "A Shabby Genteel Story" and "The Adventures of Philip." The first story more or less retells Cinderella but with a nasty twist at the end. This made me quite despondent and I hid the book under the bed for a while after that.
Then I started the next part (which has a subplot revealing a slightly less horrible result to the first story - hurrah).
Anyway, in the middle of one of his usual hackneyed plots about morals and manners, there's a delightful passage where a young man is seduced by the pleasures of the demimonde and has become a bit of a slacker:
Ah, think where he might be, and where he is!' [laments his father]
Where he was? Do not be alarmed. Philip was only idling. Philip might have been much more industriously, more profitably, and a great deal more wickedly employed. What is now called Bohemia had no name in Philip's young days, though many of us knew the country very well. A pleasant land, not fenced with drab stucco, like Tyburnia or Belgravia; not guarded by a large standing army of footmen; not echoing with noble chariots; not replete with polite chintz drawing-rooms and neat tea-tables; a land over which hangs an endless fog, occasioned by much tobacco; a land of chambers, billiard-rooms, supper-rooms, oysters; a land of song; a land where soda-water flows freely in the morning; a land of tin-dish covers from taverns, and frothing porter; a land of lotos-eating (with lots of cayenne pepper), of pulls on the river, of delicious reading of novels, magazines, and saunterings in many studios; a land where men call each other by their Christian names; where most are poor, where almost all are young, and where if a few oldsters do enter, it is because they have preserved more tenderly and carefully than other folks their youthful spirits, and the delightful capacity to be idle. I have lost my way to Bohemia now, but it is certain that Prague is the most picturesque city in the world.*
I love the way he plays with the metaphorical and real country. And provides a recommended condiment for imaginary fruit. (Assuming lotuses are imaginary. They're in Homer so I thought they weren't real but it's been a long time since I worked in the produce section of the supermarket.)
Nice work, WM!
* WM Thackeray The Adventures of Philip Etc, McMillan 1904, pp150-151
Then I started the next part (which has a subplot revealing a slightly less horrible result to the first story - hurrah).
Anyway, in the middle of one of his usual hackneyed plots about morals and manners, there's a delightful passage where a young man is seduced by the pleasures of the demimonde and has become a bit of a slacker:
Ah, think where he might be, and where he is!' [laments his father]
Where he was? Do not be alarmed. Philip was only idling. Philip might have been much more industriously, more profitably, and a great deal more wickedly employed. What is now called Bohemia had no name in Philip's young days, though many of us knew the country very well. A pleasant land, not fenced with drab stucco, like Tyburnia or Belgravia; not guarded by a large standing army of footmen; not echoing with noble chariots; not replete with polite chintz drawing-rooms and neat tea-tables; a land over which hangs an endless fog, occasioned by much tobacco; a land of chambers, billiard-rooms, supper-rooms, oysters; a land of song; a land where soda-water flows freely in the morning; a land of tin-dish covers from taverns, and frothing porter; a land of lotos-eating (with lots of cayenne pepper), of pulls on the river, of delicious reading of novels, magazines, and saunterings in many studios; a land where men call each other by their Christian names; where most are poor, where almost all are young, and where if a few oldsters do enter, it is because they have preserved more tenderly and carefully than other folks their youthful spirits, and the delightful capacity to be idle. I have lost my way to Bohemia now, but it is certain that Prague is the most picturesque city in the world.*
I love the way he plays with the metaphorical and real country. And provides a recommended condiment for imaginary fruit. (Assuming lotuses are imaginary. They're in Homer so I thought they weren't real but it's been a long time since I worked in the produce section of the supermarket.)
Nice work, WM!
* WM Thackeray The Adventures of Philip Etc, McMillan 1904, pp150-151
Labels: Victorian literature
posted by Mary Bennet | 3:29 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home