I’m away again reading those Victorians who sold books by the cart load and are now unjustly forgotten. Sir Hall Caine was the first author, not counting God and Mohammad, that sold a million copies. It was ‘The Eternal City’ serialized in 1901. My intuition is that though very successful the novels with a Manx setting are better. I’ve just finished ‘The Manxman’ (pub. 1894)and ‘The Deemster’ (pub. 1887). Taking the general critical opinion of ‘The Manxman’ as his best book I thought it best to begin there.
Set in the 1890‘s the great storm of 1893 is internal evidence, the other great storm of the ‘woman question’ also gusts through the pages. We are moving away from the ideal of pure unsullied woman towards the frail creature of her ambitions kicking against the restrictions arising in that society. It is a theme not insisted upon but there as a constant motif. Women bringing forth children outside marriage are shamed by being obliged to stand outside church on successive Sundays and declare the father of the child though he if well off can get off this disclosure and penance by the payment of a fee to the church authorities. This is still in operation during the main part of the novel which covers the trials of the grandchildren of the old Iron Deemster one of which is the natural son Pete the Manxman. The other grandson is Philip and he is the legitimate son of Thomas who was to be the Deemster until he married beneath him led astray by modern doctrines.
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"The office of Deemster never has been and never can be hereditary; yet the Christians of Ballawhaine had been Deemsters through six generations, and old Iron Christian expected that Thomas Wilson Christian would succeed him. But there was enough uncertainty about the succession to make merit of more value than precedent in the selection, and so the old man had brought up his son to the English bar, and afterwards called him to practise in the Manx one. The young fellow had not altogether rewarded his father's endeavours. During his residence in England, he had acquired certain modern doctrines which were highly obnoxious to the old Deemster. New views on property, new ideas about woman and marriage, new theories concerning religion (always re-christened superstition), the usual barnacles of young vessels fresh from unknown waters; but the old man was no shipwright in harbour who has learnt the art of removing them without injury to the hull."
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He loses his place and the engine of the novel is the attempt by Philip to regain that position and not replicate the fate of his father by an alliiance with the femme fatale Kate, the daughter of a Publican, miller, sectarian preacher. Will she pull him down or will he pull her up. Hold it, but isn’t Pete the good, lively, simple great hearted the acknowledged suitor of Kate who being rejected by Caesar the daddy as a candidate being poor and of bar sinister birth. He must go to the diamond mines in Kimberly to make his fortune and leave Philip his friend to take the part of the ‘duine moladh’ the praising man in Manx. This is the person that stands the watch over the fickle woman and is the guardian of the promised troth while the man is away as an emigrant. Will the true son of the island be surpassed by the Deemster manque? An unfortunate alliance will compromise him. Better that he should take his pleasure and make a good marriage that will ally him to the right people. He is altogether conscious of tendency to replication of his father’s fate. The Eve in the novel, Kate, would have the apple of the surpassing of her station in life cashing in her vivacious beauty. Being raised in the world or remaining the miller’s daughter, too good for Pete but not good enough for Philip. There is no condemnation of Kate but the clues are there. Though she loves Philip in effect she is the wrecking light that causes him to crash on the rocks of an inflexible social order.
It’s a complex and satisfying novel. Very well written and doesn’t fraught love bring melodrama into all our lives. There will be no neat solutions. I recommend it.
