Luckypenny

This satirical novel, published in 1937, is largely set in London with scenes in France, Italy and Spain. With elements of the Eric Ambler thrillers (in which an ordinary man takes on the role of secret agent or detective), this novel features James Luckypenny, a lowly accounts clerk in an English firm that manufactures armaments. When he urgently needs a pay rise, he makes a deal with his boss to go to Italy, obtain the firm’s funds that are trapped in an Italian subsidiary (Mussolini had banned the removal of money from the country) and smuggle it back to England in his artificial leg (the result of a war injury). The success of the mission is brought about by a romantic liaison with Zenaida, a high-ranking Fascist agent, and the two meet again in Barcelona towards the end of the novel during the early stages of civil war.

The author, Bruce Marshall (born 24 June 1899), grew up in Edinburgh. He served in the First World War initially as a private in the Highland Light Infantry and then as a second lieutenant in the Royal Irish Fusiliers. In early November 1918, he was severely wounded on the Western Front. He was rescued by a German medical orderlies and taken prisoner. His injury (as in the case of the central character of this novel) resulted in a leg amputation. He was invalided out of the army in 1920 and resumed his education at the University of St Andrews. His first collection of short stories was written while a student there. After graduation, he worked as an accountant while setting out on a part-time writing career. His first novel was published in 1924. He summed up his reputation in his two spheres of work: “I am an accountant who writes books. In accounting circles I am hailed as a great writer. Among novelists I am assumed to be a competent accountant.” After the Second World War, he settled in France and committed himself to a full-time literary career. he went on to write numerous works of fiction as well as an acclaimed biography of F.F.E. Yeo-Thomas, a British agent in the Second World War, who, like the author, lived in France after the war.

The author, presumably from experience, writes about the central character’s loss of reputation and self-esteem in the years following the war:
“Immediately after the war, Luckypenny... out of uniform, had ceased to be a person of consequence. Ten years after the war, Luckypenny had [looked back towards] the war, remembering its humours and comradeships, and forgetting its horrors. Fifteen years after the war, Luckypenny quite frankly desired war, with all its mud and cold and pain; he wanted to be somebody again, but above all he wanted to do something that he knew was worth doing...”

Snow Country

Originally a short story, this novel, first published in serialised form between 1935 and 1937, and appearing later in an extended and revised edition in 1948, is set in the mountains of western Honshu. The exact location, though not specified in the text, is the onsen (spa) resort of Yuzawa in Niigita Prefecture. The central character, Shimamura, visiting from Tokyo, has an affair with Komako, a young geisha. Much of the novel is concerned with mortality, including the final scene.

The author, Yasunari Kawabata (born 11 June 1899), was born in Osaka. Orphaned at the age of 4, he was brought up by his grandparents. He left school in March 1917 and moved to Tokyo, where he prepared for entry to Tokyo Imperial University in 1920. He graduated with a literature degree in 1924, by which he time his contributions to literary magazines had already gained him a reputation as a writer, his first publication being a short story in 1921. His 1926 short story Izu no odoriko (The Izu Dancer) reinforced his growing reputation. His first novel was published in 1930. In 1968 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature with specific recognition for three novels: this novel, as well as Senbazuru (Thousand Cranes) and Koto (The Old Capital).

The author’s preoccupation with mortality begins in the early pages of the novel with the central character's observation of a terminally-ill young man being nursed on the train journey that brings him to the resort. The novel concludes with a potentially fatal incident, a fire in a warehouse:

“Shimamura put his arm around Komako’s shoulders.
‘What is there to be afraid of?’
’No, no. no!’ Komako shook her head and burst into tears...
She had burst out weeping at the sight of the fire, and Shimamura held her to him without thinking to wonder what had so upset her.
She stopped weeping as quickly as she had begun, and pulled away from him.
‘There's a movie in the warehouse. Tonight. The place will be full of people... People will be hurt. People will burn to death’.”

Skutarevsky

This novel, published in 1932, is largely set in Moscow. E.J. Brown in his Russian Literature since the Revolution regarded it as “probably one of his best works in style and intellectual power”, observing how it  “explores the psychological problems of an eminent scientist working in a socialist state and in what is undoubtedly an autobiographical statement, traces his development from a sceptical critic of the new order into an enthusiastic supporter.” The central character, Sergei Skutarevsky, is a physicist, who has been reluctant to engage with the Revolution. In a meeting with Lenin to discuss his participation in an electrification scheme, he gives his approval in a very cautious way: “Yes, but I have certain doubts”. Whereas his character becomes more politically loyal during the progress of the novel, several members of Skutarevsky’s family are shown to be disloyal and are on a path to self-destruction.

The author, Leonid Leonov (born 31 May 1899), grew up in Moscow. In 1907 his father was exiled to the northern city of Arkhangelsk for publishing two pamphlets with content deemed subversive. He began writing while at school and he had poems published as early as 1915 in his father's periodical. He had intended to study medicine in Moscow but was unable to leave Arkhangelsk due to the civil war. He served as a reporter with the Red Army until 1921. On returning to Moscow, he was introduced to prominent literary figures and his first short stories were published in 1922. His first novel was published in 1924. He went on to write a further five novels as well as several plays. He received the Lenin Prize for his 1953 novel Russki les (The Russian Forest).

In a recollection of the civil war, the author tells of how a friendship grew out of two soldiers’ co-operation in helping a wounded comrade:
“Their partisan code did not allow them to leave a live man to a piecemeal burial by the wild animals. They were still far from being friends then. They crossed hands and made a chair, sat the old man on it and cautiously set off carrying him. He was delirious but so were they; he grew heavier and heavier; his iron-shod squat-toed high boots dangled and banged against their knees. They were nearly in tears. They pulled his boots off. But then the balance was different and he kept falling back. So without saying a word, they pressed shoulder against shoulder to keep him upright. That was the beginning of their strange friendship; that firm, intercrossed grip of hands, compact as any oath, lasting all through a night which was longer than a century.”

The General

This novel, published in 1936, is largely set on the Western Front. The central character, Herbert Curzon, is an English army officer who receives promotion after promotion, these due more to circumstances than to his own talent or success. To an extent his preferment and his own self-belief depends on his rigidity in keeping to well-established military practice and discipline. In several places, he’s portrayed as being callously uncaring towards members of his family due to his insistence on upholding military order.

The author, C.S. Forester (né Cecil Smith, born 27 August 1899), grew up in London. On finishing school in 1917, he tried to enlist in the army but was deemed physically unfit for service. He spent three years studying medicine but did not graduate. Instead in 1921 he committed himself to pursuing a career as a writer. His first novel was published in 1924. He went on to write more than 40 novels, including the First World War novel, The African Queen, as well as short stories, plays (including one concerning the First World War martyr Edith Cavell) and several works of non-fiction. Perhaps best known for his Horatio Hornblower series, he was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction in 1938 for the second and third books in the series.

Probably the most acerbic depiction of the generals at the Western Front is this analogous summary of a strategy meeting in late 1915:
“In some ways it was like the debate of a group of savages as to how to extract a screw from a piece of wood. Accustomed only to nails, they had made one effort to pull out the screw by main force, and now that it had failed they were devising methods of applying more force still, of obtaining more efficient pincers, of using levers and fulcrums so that more men could bring their strength to bear. They could hardly be blamed for not guessing that by rotating the screw it would come out after the exertion of far less effort; it would be a notion so different from anything they had ever encountered that they would laugh at the man who suggested it.”