Originally the novel had more of this idea in its pages. The characters reflected on what was happening around them, had associative memories, recalled various anecdotes regarding the city’s history. It made sense to me that loss would be balanced with memory and story, and I wanted this balance to be everywhere in the novel. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to accomplish this because the very premise of my novel was also its limitation. The book was set during a night of bombing. The noise from the bombing made conversation difficult, if not impossible at times. So, my idea of having the characters relate to one another with personal stories and historical anecdotes wasn’t going to fly. Thus the novel was shaped by its own restrictions. Instead of having Harriet Marsh remember her husband, I had to move her physically to an earlier time and have those memories play out as lived experience. I had to restrict conversation between my characters to times when they were sheltering inside a building and the outside noise was subdued.
A novel is a world, and in writing a novel, an author is creating a particular world. It seems that no matter what story I am telling, the possibilities of a definitive world are equally balanced by the limitations. But it is in this struggle between what is possible and what is impossible that the imagination is charged and the story earns its shape. Just as all failure is its own kind of success, all the restrictions of an imagined world ultimately reveal themselves as freedoms.
The 1919 section of the novel—when Harriet goes to Ypres to discover what happened to her husband, Owen—became, for me, one of the strongest parts of the book. It set in motion aspects of Harriet that would show themselves more profoundly in the main action of the novel. It served to provide a guided tour of the aftermath of war, and to foreshadow the ruin of Coventry. None of this would have been shown or described—I would not have written this section at all—if my original idea for the novel had panned out.
“But it is in this struggle between what is possible and what is impossible that the imagination is charged and the story earns its shape.”
Read On: Further Reading
In writing Coventry I used many books and accounts that detailed the events o November 14, 1940, but the following were particularly useful:
The Story of the Destruction of Coventry Cathedral, by Provost R.T. Howard
Moonlight Sonata: The Coventry Blitz, 14/15 November 1940, compiled and edited by Tim Lewis
The Coventry We Have Lost (volumes I and II), by Albert Smith and David Fry
Coventry at War and Memories of Coventry (pictorial records), by Alton Douglas in conjunction with the Coventry Evening Telegraph
Air Raid: The Bombing of Coventry, 1940, by Norman Longmate
The guidebook Harriet references in the 1919 section of this novel is the illustrated Michelin guide from that same year, titled Ypres and the Battles of Ypres. The letter from Owen Marsh is an actual letter from my grandfather, Dudley d’Herbez Humphreys, who fought in the trenches at Ypres in 1914. References to Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours, by Abraham Gottlob Werner, correspond to the 1821 edition published by Patrick Syme.
Read On: Web Detective
www.cwn.org.uk/heritage/blitz/
Read more about the bombing in this article, “The Coventry Blitz,” on the site of CWN—News and Information for Coventry & Warwickshire.
www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_fi.php?lang=en& ModuleId=10005137&MediaId=171 Visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum online to see historic film footage of the bombing of Coventry.
www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwtwo/ women_at_war_01.shtml The fascinating article “Women Under Fire in World War Two” on this BBC site examines women’s work during wartime.
www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Explore this BBC archive of personal memories, “WWII People’s War,” comprising 47,000 stories and 15,000 images.
www.hhumphreys.com Drop by Helen Humphreys’ site for more about the author, her work, and upcoming events.
International Praise for COVENTRY
“This elegant novel illuminates the impact of war on ordinary people…Helen Humphreys reminds us how love is found and lost, lives forever changed, and unexpected friendships are born. Coventry is both an elegy and a celebration.”
—Ann Hood, author of The Knitting Circle
“With stark, precise poetry, Humphreys builds a palpable, almost unbearable sense of inevitability and loss that echoes both John Hersey’s Hiroshima and Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“War’s radical cognitive dissonance comes to vivid life.”
—The New York Times
“Humphreys deploys her immense craft with spellbinding results…Nobody conveys longing like Humphreys.”
—NOW Magazine
“Humphreys evokes the wartime atmosphere of fear and dislocation with great poignancy.”
—Quill & Quire
“Meticulously researched and vividly imagined, this is a historical novel that…powerfully resonates through the years to our present moment. As such it’s a gift to us all.”
—Peter Ho Davies, author of The Welsh Girl
“[A] small jewel of a book…Humphreys utilizes her superb poet’s eye to turn all the twisted metal, broken buildings and wrecked lives…into literary art.”
—Ottawa Citizen
“An affecting novel about the city’s—and Harriet’s—romance and tragedy.”
—ELLE
“So vivid, you can almost taste the acrid smoke and feel the panic…With a poet’s sensitivity, Humphreys captures the blind, lethal insanity of war.”
—The Seattle Times
Also By Helen Humphreys
LEAVING EARTH
AFTERIMAGE
THE LOST GARDEN
WILD DOGS
THE FROZEN THAMES
Copyright
Coventry
Copyright © 2008 by Helen Humphreys. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © MAY 2010 ISBN: 978-1-443-40012-1
A Phyllis Bruce Book, published by Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
First published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd in a hardcover edition: 2008 This Harper Perennial trade paperback edition: 2009
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
The lines from Philip Larkin are from the poem “High Windows” and are used with permission from Faber and Faber Ltd./The Estate of Philip Larkin.
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Humphreys, Helen, 1961–
Coventry : a novel / Helen Humphreys.
“A Phyllis Bruce Book”.
EPub Edition © MAY 2006 ISBN: 9781443400121
I. Title.
PS8565.U558C68 2009
C813’.54
C2008-908023-8
RRD 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Text design by Sharon Kish
The Reinvention of Love
A Novel
Helen Humphreys
Contents
Dedication
Epigraph
Paris, 1830s
Charles
Adèle
Charles
Paris, 1840s
Charles
Adè
le
Charles
Guernsey, 1850s
Adèle
Paris, 1860s
Charles
Halifax, Canada
Dédé
Charles
The North Atlantic
Dédé
Charles
Acknowledgements
More Praise for The Reinvention of Love
Also by Helen Humphreys
Author’s Note
P.S. Ideas, Interviews & Features
Meet Helen Humphreys
The Poetic Voice of Charles Sainte-Beuve: An Essay by Helen Humphreys
Sainte-Beuve’s Paris: An Essay by Helen Humphreys
Book Club Questions
Suggested Reading and Listening
Web Detective
Copyright
Dedication
In memory of my brother, Martin
Epigraph
Le vrai, le vrai seul.
—Sainte-Beuve
Paris, 1830s
Charles
IT SEEMS I AM to die again.
He slapped my face. I called him a “glorious inferior.” (Not in that order.) And here we are, in this rainy wood in the middle of the working week, trying to kill each other.
Let me explain.
I want to tell you everything.
The board meeting was long and dreary. I was tired. When the senior editor asked me to shorten my article, I objected. I am only a junior writer at the newspaper, but I am much more intelligent than anyone else there, and sometimes I just can’t pretend otherwise. It was careless of me to insult Monsieur Dubois, because I knew the possible consequences of such an action. And I was not disappointed. He practically sprang across the table to strike my face. His challenge could be heard by people walking outside on the crowded boulevard.
Antoine is my reluctant second. He is out of the cab already, the wooden case with the duelling pistols tucked securely under one arm. “Come on,” he says. “They’re waiting.” And through the open door of the cab, I can see Pierre Dubois and his second, the print runner Bernard, standing under a straggly group of trees at the edge of the wood.
“I haven’t even had my breakfast,” I say, struggling to open my umbrella before I step down onto the soggy ground.
“Get out,” says Antoine unsympathetically, and I feel like challenging him to a duel for his insolence.
I snap open my umbrella.
“You can’t be serious,” he says.
“What?”
“That.” He gestures towards the green umbrella with the yellow handle. I had thought it very dashing when I purchased it from a Paris shop last week. But I can see that here, out in nature, it looks a bit ridiculous.
“Lower it,” he says.
“I will not. I don’t mind being killed, but I refuse to get wet.”
We march off moodily into the wood.
Pierre Dubois also appears disheartened by my umbrella. It seems to make him feel sad for me, and perhaps he has second thoughts about shooting such a pitiful creature.
“You can offer me a profound apology,” he says, “and we can forget all about this.”
We are writers. We are meant to brandish pens, not pistols. I regret my insult. Pierre obviously regrets his challenge. I could apologize, and we could share a cab back to the city and resume the business of making a newspaper.
But words are not easy to set aside. They make a shape in the mouth, a shape in the air. When something is said, it exists, and it is not easily persuaded again into silence. The truth is that I do think Pierre Dubois is my inferior. The truth is that I annoy him beyond reason and he would like to fire me, but he can’t because the readers are so fond of my reviews.
“I take nothing back,” I say.
“You are a fool,” says Pierre.
“You are a bigger fool.”
Now we can’t wait to shoot each other. Antoine opens the case and loads the pistols. Bernard has disappeared behind a tree to relieve himself.
The gun is heavy and smells of scorch and earth. I clutch it to my breast and pace off into the trees, counting the twenty strides under my breath, pausing only once, when my umbrella snags in the branches overhead.
Pierre has challenged me, so I am to shoot first. I stop. I turn. I raise my hand with the pistol in it and sight down my arm. Pierre is partially obscured by scrub. The rain erases his outline. I squint, then I pull the trigger. The gun kicks and smokes, and for a moment, I can’t see anything. Someone yells and I’m afraid I have hit Pierre, but when the smoke clears, he remains as he was, standing in the rain in the middle of some bushes.
Now it is Pierre’s turn.
The bright green umbrella will help guide the lead ball to its target, but I refuse to sheathe it because I insisted on bringing it. But what if my stubbornness causes my death? It occurs to me, for the first time, that I am perhaps too wilful for my own good, that I am not helped by my character, that it potentially causes me great harm, and that I should probably fight hard against it.
“You will get another shot,” says Antoine, appearing suddenly at my side. “Give me the pistol and I’ll reload for you.”
I pass it to him and turn so I can present the full fleshly target of my body to Pierre Dubois.
It is then I think of Adèle, and how, if I die, she will weep and despair and be impressed by my courage. So I had better summon some courage. I take a deep breath and hold it, close my eyes, and brace myself for the sting and the first bitter taste of darkness.
HE IS MY NEIGHBOUR. We live two doors apart on Notre-Dame-des-Champs. He is also my dear friend. I am also in love with his wife.
Of Victor’s poetry, I can say that nothing is better. Of his plays, nothing is worse. It is prudent of him, perhaps, to have recently become a novelist. But whatever he does, he is wildly successful, driven by an appetite for glory that I envy and admire. I like to think that my glowing reviews of his poetry have helped to make him so famous. Certainly our friendship has blossomed because of my praise. It has also inspired my own writing, and I have dedicated the first volume of my poems to Victor. Friendship is a consolation to me. I believe in its properties as some believe in religion.
But it doesn’t seem to have helped my book sales.
Have I mentioned already that I am in love with Victor’s wife, Adèle? To say that this complicates the friendship for me is an understatement. But for Victor, who knows nothing of my passion for Adèle, our friendship remains joyful and uncomplicated.
The Hugos have four children—the last, little Adèle, my goddaughter, was born just a few months ago. Their house is noisy and crowded, alive with laughter and schemes. I delight in its tumult after the calm seas of my own empty domicile.
Tonight, after my rather invigorating day in the countryside duelling with Monsieur Dubois, I enter to find Victor and Adèle in the kitchen with two men. There is a jug of wine on the table. The men are drinking and pacing. Adèle sits in a chair with a large sheet of paper spread out on her lap. Several of the children run through the kitchen at intervals, chasing one another with a butterfly net and shrieking like birds at the zoo.
I am so often at the Hugos’ house that it has long ceased to be necessary for me to knock at the door and wait to be admitted. I just walk in.
“Charles,” says Victor, when he sees me standing in the kitchen doorway, “we are plotting. Come and help us.” He claps me on the back and passes his own glass of wine to me. “I think you know Theo and Luc.”
The young men who hang on the genius of Victor Hugo look indistinguishable to me. Theo could be Luc could be Henri could be Pascal. They are interchangeable, these admirers, and the great poet treats them with benevolence, but he uses them like servants.
I nod at the men, who glance my way briefly and then return their rapt attention to Victor.
“Here,” says Adèle, patting the chair beside hers, “come and join me.”
She looks up with her beautiful brown eyes and just the sugge
stion of a smile on her lips. I sit down. Our heads are a whisper apart. She has her hair up tonight. Often she does this so hastily that the twists of dark hair look like a nest of glossy sausages sitting atop her perfectly shaped head.
“What are you doing?”
“Marching into battle,” says Victor, fetching a fresh glass and pouring himself some more wine. “Slaying the enemy.”
I look at the piece of paper on Adèle’s lap. It’s a seating map for the Comédie-Française.
“The anti-romantics don’t like Hernani,” she explains. “There are hecklers every night.”
“Ignorants,” shouts Victor. The children screech through the kitchen, waving the butterfly net like a gauzy flag.
Hernani is the latest of Victor’s wretched plays. This time, the melodrama is about two lovers who poison each other. The irony is not lost on me.
Helen Humphreys Three-Book Bundle Page 35
