Caprice. - book reviews

Studies in Short Fiction, Spring, 1994 by William M. Harrison

Ronald Firbank's 1917 novella Caprice has been available recently only in the New Directions omnibus collection Three More Novels (1951; 1986); now that the work has been published as part of the (comparatively) affordable Bibelots series, those who are unacquainted with Firbank's distinctive and witty prose have little excuse for not having read at least one of this author's engaging works.

The British novelist's short life (1886 - 1926) and somewhat marginal career have limited his potential readership, especially in America. Concerning himself with campy, escapist characterizations and minimal plots, Firbank wrote "light" novels that, despite their celebratory exuberance, touched notoriously upon the fin-de-siecle dispossessed and "decadent": i.e., the artistic, the fashionable, the homosexual. Of course, this is the milieu that Firbank himself knew best and was part of: his major works, Vainglory (1915), Valmouth (1919), Sorrow in Sunlight (1924) (published in America as Prancing Nigger under the advice of Carl Van Vechten, fellow transgressive and author of Nigger Heaven [1926]), and the oddly titled Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli (1926), each mine the scene once dominated by Wilde and later capitalized upon by the Sitwells with the rise of post- 1910 Modernism.

Caprice is one of Firbank's lesser novellas and does not quite achieve the level of high camp so indicative of his style. However, what the book lacks in outrageousness, it makes up for in accessibility - which is no doubt why the publisher chose this work to issue in a separate volume.

The story itself is rather simple: we trace the rise and fall of Sally Sinquier, daughter of a rural Anglican Canon, who steals off to London to make her success upon the stage. Originally lured to the city by a "stage procuress," Sally falls in among the most eccentric of theater types and eventually, through her own shrewdness and happenstance, stages her own successful West End production of Romeo and Juliet (whose crowning, scandalous glory is the leads' 15-minute kiss). After the opening night, Sally dies in a vaguely described accident involving late-night gymnastics and a mouse-trap. However absurd, the narrative progresses quite swiftly.

Of course, Firbank is not known for the complexities of his plots; instead in Caprice we find characters, both precious and precise, and in this theatrical tale the author delineates them with the broad mannerisms of the stage. Some of the more memorable are character actor Mr. Smee who when drunk - which is often - has difficulty remembering exactly which play he is in, Russian or English, The Tempest or Romeo and Juliet; and Miss Mary Mant (aka Rene Iris), Sally's flightly protegee and quasi-lesbian acolyte, who makes the wildly spontaneous Sally appear realistic and serious. Also we find the Bernhardt-like stage queen Mrs. Mary - who becomes even more insufferable as Lady Mary when her husband is accidentally knighted at a Royal soiree - swaggering through her scenes with prepossessed grandeur, refusing to be upstaged; the predatory and brilliantly hypocritical Mrs. Sixsmith, who helps Sally - for a small commission - pawn her pearls and meet her sugar-daddy Sir Oliver Dawtry; and, of course, Sally Sinquier herself. Our protagonist is a bizarre mix of romanticism, triviality, immaturity, and self-possession. In her all-important audition with Mrs. Mary, Sally is caught, with "[t]ongue protruding, face upturned," examining an ornate ceiling; during the reading, she asks if her role as an orphan "is . . . allowed evening dress."

And yet, the novella presents a common and vital contrast, juxtaposing innocence with experience; Sally is the Christian innocent consumed by the wildness of London-as-Sodom. But Caprice celebrates hedonism as a vivifying force. Mrs. Sixsmith closes the novel after Sally's death with a visit to Canon Sinquier, eyeing hungrily "[t]hose fine palatial houses [ . . . ] full of wealth . . . old Caroline plate and gorgeous green Limoges." While Sally's unfortunate achievements bring the metropolitan confidence-woman to the outlying contryside, the fact remains that Sixsmith also spurs directly Sally's moment of glory. There is some promise for that sinecure outside the city. Firbank's art, wit, and understanding will not let us reduce Caprice to a mere morality play.