Many Are Disappointed, by V. S. Pritchett

BIOGRAPHY (from last year), by Rafel Martínez

Sir Victor Sawdon Pritchett, was born in Suffolk, on 16 December 1900, he was the first of four children of Walter Sawdon Pritchett and Beatrice Helena. His father, a London businessman, started several businesses, but, due to his insecurity and his tendency to credit and embezzlement, had to close the businesses and disappear, so the family was forced to change their address to different cities, such as Ipswich, Woodford, Essex or Derby, which forced the children to change schools frequently, all to circumvent the persecution of the numerous creditors of Walter, the father.

The family moved to East Dulwich and he attended Alleyn's School, but when his paternal grandparents came to live with them at age 16, he was forced to leave school to work as a clerk for a leather buyer in Bermondsey. The leather work lasted from 1916 until 1920 when he moved to Paris to work as a shop assistant. In 1923 he started writing for The Christian Science Monitor, which sent him to Ireland and Spain. Pritchett, along with his friend and writer Gerald Brenan, is one of the few Englishmen who, in the early 1930s, toured the Spanish territory. From that youthful experience, Pritchett wrote Marching Spain, which appeared in 1928. However, it was not until 1954 that, already a consecrated writer, he published The Spanish Temperament, an excellent travel chronicle about our country.

In 1936 he divorced his first wife and married Dorothy Rudge Roberts, by whom he had two children; the marriage lasted until Pritchett's death in 1997, although they both had other relationships.

During the Second World War Pritchett worked for the BBC and the Ministry of Information while continuing to write weekly essays for the New Statesman. After World War II he wrote extensively and embarked on various university teaching positions in the United States: Princeton (1953), the University of California (1962), Columbia University and Smith College. Fluent in French, German and Spanish, he published acclaimed biographies of Honoré de Balzac (1973), Ivan Turgenev (1977), and Anton Chekhov (1988).

Sir Pritchett was appointed a Knight Bachelor in 1975 for "services to literature" and a Companion of Honour in 1993, in addition to other multiple decorations and mentions throughout his life, which makes him the best English author of his time.

Sir V. S. Pritchett died of a stroke in London on 20 March 1997.

THE STORY

Four cyclists going on a ride expect to find a bar or a pub at the top of a hill, but they are disappointed because there is only a house with the old sign “Tavern”, that can mean an inn (that is no alcohol), so they won’t be able to have some beers. They have followed this road in the hope of sightseeing an antient Roman way: second disappointment. And thus, so on with some more. In the house there’s a small and frail woman with her daughter, also a little girl. The woman is happy to serve them some tea with some light food, although they would rather have had stronger food. At the end, they are happy with their tea, and they even start to have some feelings for the woman and her child. After tea, they went back again in search of a pub, and the woman feels very happy to have had them at home, and this not only for the money she got from their meal.

I think there are two very interesting features in this story. First, the characters: you don’t find the typical way of composing a story: the narrator begins introducing the characters with a full description, physical and psychological; instead, you have to unite the different pieces of the characters to form them, like in a puzzle. What did the author do this for? And second, the title. In the story, there are a lot of disappointments, and everyone has their own disappointment. But in the end, I think they are satisfied with what they had, at the end disappointment has been disappointed.

Many Are disappointed: Analisys

Many Are disappointed: Review

QUESTIONS

Look for and jot down information about the characters in order to describe them (surname, appearance, personality, age, likes and dislikes…)

Bert
Sid
Harry
Ted
The woman
The girl

What kind of bike are they riding? How do you know?

What different feelings does the woman have for the four different men?

Why does Sid think that he had seen the woman before? Does he want to flirt with her?

In which part of Great Britain is the story situated (look for the toponyms in a map)?

Why is there a confusion between Romans and Gypsies?

Describe the meal.

Why do you think the woman trusts a very confidential thing (she almost died) to Sid?

Do you think the house is really a “tea-house”? Why?

Explain all you know about the ring.

Are the really sportsmen? How do you know?

Why did or didn’t you like the story?

VOCABULARY

dunno, out-building, ruddy, skylark, stubborn, reed, meadows, hedge, wiry, whimper, frail, drab, moist, dumbfounded, sell, gasper, treacle (coloured), drizzle, dazed, dippy, cocksure, splice, flash, dawdle, drably, scabious, bin, boldly, wants, pout

The Family Man, by V. S. Pritchett

V. S. Pritchett at the Wikipedia: click here

The Family Man: analisis (text and audio)

Summaries of other Pritchett's stories: click here

PRESENTATION, by Rafel Martínez

BIOGRAPHY

Sir Victor Sawdon Pritchett, was born in Suffolk, on 16 December 1900, he was the first of four children of Walter Sawdon Pritchett and Beatrice Helena. His father, a London businessman, started several businesses, but due to his insecurity and his tendency to credit and embezzlement, had to close the businesses and disappear, so the family was forced to change their address to different cities, such as Ipswich, Woodford, Essex or Derby, which forced the children to change schools frequently, all to circumvent the persecution of the numerous creditors of Walter, the father.

The family moved to East Dulwich and he attended Alleyn's School, but when his paternal grandparents came to live with them at age 16, he was forced to leave school to work as a clerk for a leather buyer in Bermondsey. The leather work lasted from 1916 until 1920 when he moved to Paris to work as a shop assistant. In 1923 he started writing for The Christian Science Monitor, which sent him to Ireland and Spain. Pritchett, along with his friend and writer Gerald Brenan, is one of the few Englishmen who, in the early 1930s, toured the Spanish territory. From that youthful experience, Pritchett wrote Marching Spain, which appeared in 1928. However, it was not until 1954 that, already a consecrated writer, he published The Spanish Temperament, an excellent travel chronicle about our country.

In 1936 he divorced his first wife and married Dorothy Rudge Roberts, by whom he had two children; the marriage lasted until Pritchett's death in 1997, although they both had other relationships.

During the Second World War Pritchett worked for the BBC and the Ministry of Information while continuing to write weekly essays for the New Statesman. After World War II he wrote extensively and embarked on various university teaching positions in the United States: Princeton (1953), the University of California (1962), Columbia University and Smith College. Fluent in French, German and Spanish, he published acclaimed biographies of Honoré de Balzac (1973), Ivan Turgenev (1977), and Anton Chekhov (1988).

Sir Pritchett was appointed a Knight Bachelor in 1975 for "services to literature" and a Companion of Honour in 1993, in addition to other multiple decorations and mentions throughout his life, which makes him the best English author of his time.

Sir V. S. Pritchett died of a stroke in London on 20 March 1997.

THE STORY

This work, written by V.S. Pritchett, like all the other tales of him, are considered masterpieces that make their author to be considered as the best writer in England of the 20th century.

Like all his works, these are stories of normal people, with ordinary lives and that the author deals with that typical English irony, the well-known English humour. In most cases the actors are put in scenes that we all recognize as picturesque and that the author deals with his fine vision of double meaning and irony that the reader finds so funny.

In this case it is one story of a middle-class promiscuous man called William Cork with the pet name ‘Bunny’. He is a womanizer, a professor at a college, a married man with children, and a compulsive flute player. He has affairs with numerous women. The story is told from the viewpoint of one of his mistresses from the college, a jewellery designer called Berenice. In the story, Berenice comes face to face with Florence Cork, the obese wife of William. Mrs Cork has come across a letter sent to William in secret and she presumes Berenice is the sender.

The author fills with constant hints, especially sexual, the interpretation of his actors, with comic scenes such as when Bernice and Mrs Cork treat the theme of William's flute, one referring to her husband's musical instrument and the other, Bernice, understanding the flute's reference as William's penis, her lover.

ANALYSIS

I have to confess that it is my first approach to a work by V. S. Pritchett and when I chose the title The Family Man, at first I confused it with the American film, A Family Man, directed by Mark William, and with main actors, Gerard Butler, William Defoe, that is about a businessman who must choose between promoting himself running a large Chicago company or tending his family life.

After reading three times Pritchett's work, I have ended up understanding many phrases and its double meaning that are the characteristic of its author, where he mixes simple events of normal lives with his fine humour and typical English irony.

Now that I have known a work by Pritchett, I promise to look for and read other works, to confirm that in his genre he was the best author of his time.

QUESTIONS

William Cork: appearance, personality, job...
Benerice Foster: appearance, personality, job...
Benerice's flat
Benerice's father
What is a Quaker?
Sexual allusions in the story
Florence Cork: appearance, personality, job...
Benerice's talent for lying / telling the truth
Describe the affair between William and Benerice
When Benerice thinks about marriages going on holiday, she imagines "the legs of their children running across the sand". Why the legs?
Who was Rosie?
How does the relation between Benerice and Florence progress?
What does William usually do after making love with Benerice?
The necklace
Mrs Cork said: "Don't be jealous of Mrs Glowitz, dear. You'll get your turn." What's the double meaning of this sentence?
Can you tell the difference between "swoosh her hair" and "put it up"?

VOCABULARY

dawdle, piquancy, blob, droop, lurch, flourish, soft-soap, twaddle, flopped, rummage, harass, bicker, slapdash, hang-dog, wisp, dab (dabbing), pushy, talk somebody's head off

SOME NOTES ABOUT V. S. PRITCHETT

He had a terrible handwriting and his manuscripts were so full of corrections and blots that only his wife was capable to decipher his texts and type them. She used an Imperial typewriter, and she typed with such a speed and strength that it sounded exactly as a gun machine.

V. S Pritchett was born in 1900, so he used to say that he was as old as the century, or that the century was as old as he. He wanted to be called V.S.P. because he didn’t like his first name Victor. His mother would rather like a girl and she would name her after the queen Victoria, but, as he was a boy, he was called Victor.

When he was a child his family used to move house frequently, and he sometimes lived with his grandparents near York. His father never lasted long in a job and changed employment very often.

Pritchett couldn’t go to university (his family were poor) and he had to work in a leather company, but he could work for the firm as a clerk in Paris. However he wanted to be an artist. He started to paint because in 1921 Paris was full of artists. He did his first picture in two weeks, but when he looked at it he saw was a failure, so he abandoned his painting career after fifteen days. Then he decided to write, but one has to have something to write and he didn’t have anything to say. However, by chance, he had a lucky strike: there was a jokes contest in a newspaper; you had to write a joke and send it to the paper. His joke (it was a regular joke) was published and, although he didn’t get any money, he was very happy. Now he knew that if you don’t have anything to say, at least you can tell what others say, and he started his career as a writer.

To write well he thought he could imitate what writers did before him, and he discovered that some writers used to walk a lot, and so he walked very long walks. Also he read that Barrie (the author of Peter Pan) said the best thing to do to start writing was to write about small things or about things that are near you. Following this piece of advice he wrote about his room, send the text to the newspapers and... three newspapers accepted his articles. Now he could say he was a real author because he earned money with his texts.

He didn’t like to reread his articles or his stories because afterwards he found them very poor, and so he got very sad about his talent; but then he discovered that this was a common feeling in lots of writers: it’s the depression after the work is done. So some writers, as himself, get satisfaction in the act itself, and not after the text is deemed finished.

After Paris, in 1923 he travelled to Ireland (after obtaining the independence from Great Britain and in the middle of a civil war) and became a newspaper’s correspondent. There, in that country fond of beer and whiskey, he discovered that drinking alcohol don’t make you write better, but exactly the other way round, and he banned liquors forever when he wrote.

He wrote his first short stories in Ireland, where from an Irishman he got the inspiration for the short story Sense of Humour, and in Spain, about where he wrote a pair of books.

The Family Man was published in 1979 in his collection of short stories On the Edge of the Cliff.