Charles Morgan’s Sparkenbroke is about art and the artist’s relationship to the world.
The plot is only of marginal interest.
Sparkenbroke by Charles Morgan
MacMillan, 1936. 553 p. 1936 bestseller #3. My grade: B.
The novel is set in an English country town at the edge of the Sparkenbroke estate. Lord Sparkenbroke, a renowned poet and novelist, flits back from Italy occasionally, spending most of his time writing in a cottage on the estate.
Sparkenbroke’s wealthy wife runs the estate which she is restoring to profitability for their children to inherit.
Mary Leward comes to Chelmouth to visit her former teacher, Helen Hardy.
When Mary’s father practically disowns her for breaking her engagement to a wealthy man, Helen’s brother, George Hardy, steps in with a proposal of marriage.
Mary meets Lord Sparkenbroke, whom she knows through his poetry.
Mary thinks she can be Sparkenbroke’s muse and George’s wife, too.
Morgan explores Sparkenbroke’s vision of death as the ultimate transcendent experience. All most readers will see, however, is a picture of a working writer.
The seemingly inevitable affair is never consummated.
All the characters love, or at least are fond of, the others.
And Sparkenbroke’s one true love his is writing.
In the end, the solid, reliable George appears as the book’s hero.
© 2016 Linda Gorton Aragoni
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