4 Stars
This novel focuses on the effects on Oscar Wilde’s family of his trial and imprisonment for homosexuality.
The book opens with Oscar, his wife Constance, and other family members on holiday in Norfolk. The arrival of Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie) upsets the peace of the vacation. It is during his prolonged stay that Constance realizes that Oscar and Bosie are lovers, and the foundations of the happy family are shaken.
Structured like a Wilde play, the novel is narrated in five acts. In the first act, it is 1892 and Oscar is one of the most popular playwrights in London when the family holidays on a farm in Norfolk. Though Constance feels Oscar “has never belonged entirely to her,” being a man of public interest and constantly visited by a “stream of acolytes, the procession of narrow-chested young men, each younger than the last,” she thinks of their marriage as a happy one. Bosie’s arrival changes everything. The second act, set in 1897, focuses on Constance’s life in Italy where she has taken refuge from the ugly publicity surrounding Oscar’s trial and imprisonment. She changes her name and the surname of her children to Holland. The third act is from the perspective of Cyril, the elder son; he is a sniper in the trenches of France during World War I. The fourth act, 1925 in London, focuses on Vyvyan, the younger son, who is still grappling with what happened in Norfolk and his father’s legacy. The final act reunites the family members in a surprising way and imagines what could have happened if everyone had agreed to create an unconventional family and hide Oscar’s homosexuality from the public and authorities.
Though Oscar is the famous figure, he is not the main character. It is the people most affected by his choices and actions that are central to the novel: Constance, Cyril, and Vyvyan. Lady Brooke, Constance’s friend, states that Oscar has made his wife a martyr: “’Dragging you and your boys into his mire. Forcing you into exile. Obliging you to live under assumed identities. . . . Dressed like somebody’s governess in a rented villa. Cringing at phantom journalists and dragging your right leg after you like a sack of turnips.’” Cyril reacts to what happened to his father by rejecting his father: “I am no wild, passionate, irresponsible hero. I live by thought, not by emotion.” He despises “weak-kneed, effeminate degenerates” and aspires to “an obsidian hardness”: “Life in its most collapsed and concentrated form – that is the destiny of a boy whose father acted like a woman, turned other men into women. That same boy must scourge all that is female from his soul and, coming himself into manhood, embrace the most masculine of careers” because “lapping at his heels always, is the memory of shame, of exile, or what happens when a fellow makes himself tender.”
Though obviously there is a great deal of pathos, there is also humour. Dialogue is often sparkling and witty. One of Constance’s friends mentions listening to Bosie’s talking about nothing but himself, and Constance replies, “’So he is a man after all.’” Lady Wilde, Oscar’s mother, with her cathedral chest, adds many a light-hearted moment.
Characters are fully developed. One cannot help but empathize with Constance. She thinks of herself as “A woman of scant importance,” but there is no doubt of her intelligence. And one cannot but admire her behaviour. For instance, on the opening night of The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895, she stands by her husband: “’she took [Oscar’s] arm and smiled with the most extraordinary placidity toward every photographer.’” Oscar is selfish and proud and reckless. He loves attention. Constance thinks of her husband with “his egoism and disdain for consequences, his readiness to fly as close to the sun as the sun will allow.” But there are glimpses of him as a husband and father. He treats Constance with tenderness and affection. And there is also no doubt of his love for his sons; his “finding” of Blackie, a rabbit Cyril loved, indicates his ability and desire to be a good father.
The character who emerges as the villain is Bosie. One man speaks of him as “’the most astonishing case of arrested development I have ever had the misfortune of encountering,’” and that is a perfect description. He can be very charming, but at his heart is a narcissist. His behaviour during the Norfolk holiday can only be described as odious, and his meeting with Vyvyan decades later confirms he has not changed; one man describes him as a “’rancorous bigot,’” But even for this spoiled child, one can have some compassion when reading about the treatment he receives at the hands of his father, the Marquess of Queensberry.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is deeply insightful in its portrayal of human nature and emotions. I will be visiting Dublin this fall, and I intend to view the Oscar Wilde Memorial Sculpture in Merrion Square. Besides admiring Oscar reclining on a boulder, I will be paying particular attention to one of the pillars that flanks the boulder: a representation of Constance Wilde. Thank you, Mr. Bayard, for helping me think about her whose life was so impacted by her famous husband’s choices.
Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.
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