Robert Hichens (1864–1950)
Autor von The Green Carnation
Über den Autor
Bildnachweis: Courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery (image use requires permission from the New York Public Library)
Werke von Robert Hichens
Everybody Helps 1 Exemplar
Zugehörige Werke
Aesthetes and Decadents of the 1890s: An Anthology of British Poetry and Prose (1981) — Mitwirkender — 173 Exemplare
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: 12 Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do on TV (1957) — Mitwirkender — 163 Exemplare
Oscar Wilde: Collection of 300 Classic Works with Analysis and Historical Background (2013) — Mitwirkender — 12 Exemplare
Getagged
Wissenswertes
- Rechtmäßiger Name
- Hichens, Robert Smythe
- Andere Namen
- Hichens, Robert S.
- Geburtstag
- 1864-11-14
- Todestag
- 1950-07-20
- Geschlecht
- male
- Nationalität
- UK
- Land (für Karte)
- England, UK
- Geburtsort
- Speldhurst, Kent, England, UK
- Sterbeort
- Zurich, Switzerland
- Wohnorte
- Speldhurst, Kent, England, UK
- Ausbildung
- Clifton College
Royal College of Music
London School of Journalism - Berufe
- journalist
novelist
music lyricist
short story writer
music critic
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- #43,720
- Bewertung
- 3.9
- Rezensionen
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- ISBNs
- 171
- Sprachen
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- 1
Reggie visits the Belgrave Square home of Mrs. Windsor, whose other guests include Esmé Amarinth. Both he and Mrs. Windsor hope to secure Reggie’s indolent life of beauty by marrying him to the riches of the other guest that evening, Lady Locke, Mrs. Windsor’s young widowed cousin. And Reggie, not disinclined, undertakes a diffident courtship of Lady Locke when the scene shifts to the country, where Mrs. Windsor invites them for a week in her cottage.
Lady Locke soon catches on and prepares herself for the expected proposal. At first, she’s amenable, although her feelings toward Reggie are more maternal than amorous. But, above all, Reggie confuses her. Early on, she says to herself: “I can’t understand him. . . . He seems to be talented, and yet an echo of another man, naturally good-hearted, full of horrible absurdities, a gentleman, and yet not a man at all. He says himself that he commits every sin that attracts him, but he does not look wicked. What is he? Is he being himself, or is he being Mr. Amarinth, or is he merely posing, or is he really hateful, or is he only whimsical, and clever, and absurd? What would he have been if he had never seen Mr. Amarinth?”
Her feelings turn to fury when she overhears Reggie promising her son, Tommy, a green carnation (Reggie and Esmé wear a fresh one in the lapel each day).
The green carnation is, of course, a potent symbol. Green is the color most closely associated with nature, but in a carnation, it is unnatural.
The green carnation was also, notoriously, concocted by Oscar Wilde. Indeed, the two men in the novel are modeled on Wilde and his notorious young companion, Lord Alfred (“Bosie”) Douglas. Moreover, the conversation abounds in Wildean epigrams, many of them, I learned after finishing the book, overheard on the lips of Wilde and Lord Douglas by Hichens.
Amarinth is depicted as an effete aesthete and playwright of minor achievement.
The novel tries to be light-hearted, but by making a brave choice—in England, 1894—to tackle “unnatural vice,” it makes its task difficult. In addition, some of the modest pleasure I took from the book was diminished when I learned that it was introduced as evidence when Wilde was put on trial two years after this book’s publication.
And as for Lady Locke’s speculation that Amarinth has corrupted Reggie—well, in the case of Oscar and Bosie, let’s say that is open to interpretation.… (mehr)