The Luck of Barry Lyndon
William Makepeace Thackeray, 1844
This is False Choices where we attempt to filter out much of the nonsense and distractions of modern life for better choices. Today, we suggest the following novel as a fine winter entertainment. Happy to have you here, please subscribe for more reviews and short stories,
What was life like in the mid 19th Century for the average man? Or even the above average man of little means? Pretty bleak, one would answer, judging by the novel The Luck Barry Lyndon. With any luck I’ll make it to the 200th anniversary of this great work of fiction; a work that provides a view of life, ‘back in the day’ in the current dialect, that’s as rich and wild as anything we see currently on the front pages of the internet.
Young Redmond Barry is the son of a wild Irishman, deceased of course as the novel opens, named Harry Barry of Barryouge. His mother, with whom he shares a small cottage, fills his head with tales of his noble lineage back to the ancient and heroic kings of Ireland. But alas, he and his mother must maintain their household on a small 50 pounds a year. This is one thing that you’ll have to get used to in the novel. Everyone you meet is living on some allowance made to them by a local noble, who enriches himself through the rents he collects from the land and mines and harbors he owns. The ‘capital’ class is quite small, but the hangers on are numerous. Underneath them are the merchant class and the lawyers, people who have risen up by hard work and their wits. Of course the peasants occupy the rest of the society.
When the novel begins Redmond is but a boy of 15. He’s in love with Nora, a cousin who is 8 years his senior. She dallies with him as older girls will, and he falls madly in love with her. You begin to like the boy; his earnestness, bravery (there is a duel), and idealism warm you to Redmond, as the whole first half of the novel must do. Thackeray is very smart in this - to make a hero so appealing to the reader’s imagination, that the rest of the tale, in which this Redmond evolves to the gentleman Barry Lyndon, is palatable.
By the middle of the novel, we find a different Redmond Barry; his behavior changed remarkably by his real world experiences, his desperate circumstances, the treachery of all who surround him. Yet we still admire him, his pluck and single mindedness. We excuse much of his behavior because the others he must deal with are even worse.
It is only when he finally attains the great prize, his marriage to a Countess with 30,000 a year from a wide number of assets, that his true character reveals itself. It was once called ‘pride’, but in Thackeray’s time was known as ‘self love’, and nowadays we know it as narcissism, combined with healthy dose of Machiavellianism and psychopathy. But I don’t want to give away too much.
It’s interesting to note that the novel didn’t come out of thin air. The tale found its sources in several real life stories written in the newspapers of the day, and of which Thackeray was well aware. What Thackeray brought to the tale, apart from great writing, was a deep and intense understanding of human nature. He was able to round out the characters of the novel by his understanding of our everlasting needs as human beings for the love and admiration of our fellows, and the fellows one rung higher on the ladder, no matter what rung of the ladder we attain.
Is it a novel worthy of its 388 pages? Well, if it was the long, beautiful days of summer I wouldn’t be writing this, I guarantee you. But since we are in the throes of winter here in Northern Michigan let me provide a giant endorsement of The Luck of Barry Lyndon. The sun sets around 5:00 PM and there’s nothing on television, the movies have suddenly stopped being amusing, or moving or anything really, and football season is quickly drawing to a close, so get out to the library and find a copy of Thackeray’s first novel, and enjoy three solid weeks of unmatched entertainment!
By the way, I was not expecting the novel to be as funny as it is. In fact, there are some passages that are absolutely hilarious and made me realize that the American author Mark Twain had certainly read Thackeray. Take the following bit as a good example. Barry falls out with the Reverend, the “old rebel” who services the local Hackton parish, and takes his revenge:
I used to punish the old rebel by snoring very loud in my pew on Sundays during sermon-time; and I got a governor presently for Bryan, and a chaplain of my own, when he became of age sufficient to be separated from the women’s society and guardianship. His English nurse I married to my head gardener, with a handsome portion; his French gouvernante I bestowed upon my faithful German Fritz, not forgetting the dowry in the latter instance; and they set up a French dining-house in Soho, and I believe at the time I write they are richer in the world’s goods than their generous and freehanded master.
For Bryan I now got a young gentleman from Oxford, the Rev. Edmund Lavender, who was commissioned to teach him Latin, when the boy was in the humour, and to ground him in history, grammar, and the other qualifications of a gentleman. Lavender was a precious addition to our society at Hackton. He was the means of making a deal of fun there. He was the butt of all our jokes, and bore them with the most admirable and martyrlike patience. He was one of that sort of men who would rather be kicked by a great man than not be noticed by him; and I have often put his wig into the fire in the face of the company, when he would laugh at the joke as well as any man there. It was a delight to put him on a high-mettled horse, and send him after the hounds—pale, sweating, calling on us, for Heaven’s sake, to stop, and holding on for dear life by the mane and the crupper. How it happened that the fellow was never killed I know not; but I suppose hanging is the way in which his neck will be broke. He never met with any accident, to speak of, in our hunting matches: but you were pretty sure to find him at dinner in his place at the bottom of the table making the punch, whence he would be carried off fuddled to bed before the night was over. Many a time have Bryan and I painted his face black on those occasions. We put him into a haunted room, and frightened his soul out of his body with ghosts; we let loose cargoes of rats upon his bed; we cried fire, and filled his boots with water; we cut the legs of his preaching chair, and filled his sermon-book with snuff. Poor Lavender bore it all with patience; and at our parties, or when we came to London, was amply repaid by being allowed to sit with the gentlefolks, and to fancy himself in the society of men of fashion. It was good to hear the contempt with which he talked about our rector. “He has a son, sir, who is a servitor: and a servitor at a small college,” he would say. “How could you, my dear sir, think of giving the reversion of Hackton to such a lowbred creature?”
Thackeray also pulled off something amazing in the novel: It’s told in the first person, by Barry Lyndon himself, and some editions actually called it a ‘Memoir’. How he did this so well that you catch Thackeray’s meaning in the words of his main character is a tribute to the writer’s genius.
After you have finished the novel, watch the movie Barry Lyndon by Stanley Kubrick. It’s available to stream on several services for a few bucks. It can’t possibly match the depth and breadth of the novel, yet in it’s own way it’s very good and Kubrick obviously understood Thackeray’s ideas very well.
Let me know in the comments if you have read Barry Lyndon and what your thoughts are, or if you have seen the movie and have an opinion to share. And if you have readers among your friends and family please share this post, it’s always free of charge!