Self Condemned
By: Wyndham Lewis
1954
Why is it people feel they need to travel abroad to European countries to gain a sense of enlightenment and self actualization? It's strange when people from Western countries recount their journeys to France and Germany speaking of how they have become more cultured and knowledgeable once they have traveled across the ocean.
For Lewis it was the opposite. He came to Canada with his wife before the second world war to escape the proximity to violence and death. Many writers and critics have focused on how this novel has painted a horrible picture of Canada during the war. In defense, I will say Lewis subverts the mythology of Canada as being a neutral and inviting place by detailing the poverty and strife all people endured around the world.
The protagonist's wife commits suicide in this novel because she feels that her environment confines her and sets her up for impending failure. Critics have pinpointed this event as misogynistic. But I feel that this moment in the novel is less about Lewis' misogyny than how the war affects men and women. She is not a weak person. She made a decision to end her life based on living through the horrors war brings, like Virginia Woolf. It is a moment of agency that cannot be denied.
I have defended this novel in a number of ways because I feel it has been shafted by a number of critics who simply reduce it to an "anti-Canadian novel", but I feel it is much more. It's a balanced and controlled novel which illustrates reflection, understanding, and strife like few war time novels (away from the battlefield). I make this point because Lewis supposedly sympathized with Hitler leading up to the war and he has been marked by his political predilections to this day. This novel assisted Lewis in atoning for his past political oversights. And let his audience know the he was wrong to make such affiliations. I have not read many novels that discuss what Canada was like during WWII and I will have to check the 1001 list for more.
I will say that this is one of the best novels that I have read this year. Lewis' prose is even more impressive in that he wrote the novel while he was blind. I feel this novel is a great autobiographical recount of his life in Canada and a great work of humility.
oh yes, and his paintings in the novel supplement a great reading experience.
For Lewis it was the opposite. He came to Canada with his wife before the second world war to escape the proximity to violence and death. Many writers and critics have focused on how this novel has painted a horrible picture of Canada during the war. In defense, I will say Lewis subverts the mythology of Canada as being a neutral and inviting place by detailing the poverty and strife all people endured around the world.
The protagonist's wife commits suicide in this novel because she feels that her environment confines her and sets her up for impending failure. Critics have pinpointed this event as misogynistic. But I feel that this moment in the novel is less about Lewis' misogyny than how the war affects men and women. She is not a weak person. She made a decision to end her life based on living through the horrors war brings, like Virginia Woolf. It is a moment of agency that cannot be denied.
I have defended this novel in a number of ways because I feel it has been shafted by a number of critics who simply reduce it to an "anti-Canadian novel", but I feel it is much more. It's a balanced and controlled novel which illustrates reflection, understanding, and strife like few war time novels (away from the battlefield). I make this point because Lewis supposedly sympathized with Hitler leading up to the war and he has been marked by his political predilections to this day. This novel assisted Lewis in atoning for his past political oversights. And let his audience know the he was wrong to make such affiliations. I have not read many novels that discuss what Canada was like during WWII and I will have to check the 1001 list for more.
I will say that this is one of the best novels that I have read this year. Lewis' prose is even more impressive in that he wrote the novel while he was blind. I feel this novel is a great autobiographical recount of his life in Canada and a great work of humility.
oh yes, and his paintings in the novel supplement a great reading experience.
Grade:
A
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