In a TLS article in 1914 Henry James named Compton Mackenzie as the great hope of the English novel, placing him ahead of DH Lawrence among others. Now, if Mackenzie is remembered at all, it is as the author of the agreeable farce Whisky Galore!, made into a still enjoyable film directed by Alexander Mackendrick.
James’s admiration was shared by many. Mackenzie had just published Sinister Street, a bestseller despite being banned by the circulating libraries on account of its treatment of sex: very explicit for the time. Cyril Connolly claimed to have been beaten at school after being found with a copy. Scott Fitzgerald thought it was wonderful; Mackenzie became his idol. Edmund Wilson was another admirer, and remained one. Max Beerbohm said the Oxford chapters made it the best of all Oxford novels.
Anthony Powell read it in his old age. Characteristically severe, he declared that 90 per cent of it was rubbish, but there was evidence of something like genius in the other 10. The first part of the judgment is too harsh. I would say half the book at least is very good. Powell added that with more discipline and self-criticism Mackenzie might have been a great novelist. I’m with him there.
He was born into the theatre, his father an actor-manager, his American mother a leading lady, and there was always something theatrical about him. In the opinion of his admirable, and generally admiring, biographer Andro Linklater, he expressed his genius in the creation of the character Compton Mackenzie rather than in his books. Blessed, though some thought cursed, with total recall, he was an incomparable raconteur – until he went on for too long.
Devout in youth, he considered becoming an Anglican parson, preaching occasional sermons to general admiration. Aged 40, he converted to Catholicism, as did his wife, Faith Stone. Their Catholic faith kept their marriage in being, though Mackenzie couldn’t forgive her for an affair with a young Italian on Capri. He had hardly been a model of fidelity himself, but he excused himself more easily than he excused others. They remained friends but latterly lived mostly apart; by his choice, not hers.
When Faith died he married his secretary Chrissie McSween, his lover for many years, and when she died soon after of cancer, he took her sister Lily as his third wife. The McSween girls were from a Catholic family on the Hebridean island of Barra where Mackenzie had a house. They both adored “Monty”, and Lily cherished his memory in her old age. He had always found it easy to make friends, but then he gave the impression of finding most things easy, not least writing.
During the 1914-18 war he ran a British intelligence service in the Aegean. This got him into trouble when he published Greek Memories, which landed him in the Old Bailey, charged with a breach of the Official Secrets Act.
He was a founder member of the National Party of Scotland, which merged with the Scottish Party in 1934 to form the Scottish National Party, though he didn’t live in Scotland till he was middle-aged and he didn’t, it was observed, sound like a Scot. The SNP would later be suspicious of Catholics, but the early Nationalists were, like Mackenzie, Romantic idealists; he was a Jacobite himself, and when Jacobitism was a live political cause, not as later merely sentimental, Scots Jacobites were either Catholics or members of the Scottish Episcopal Church. He also supported the Irish rebels, and promoted the impractical idea of a Pan-Celtic federation. This didn’t prevent him from being a supporter of Edward VIII at the time of the Abdication.
Passionate about music, he founded Gramophone magazine with his brother-in-law, Christopher Stone, and edited it for years. The McSween sisters and previous secretaries had the duty of feeding the old 78 rpm records to his gramophone as he wrote through the night. A constant smoker of pipes and cigars, he attributed his vitality in old age to “sublime tobacco” and his abstention from exercise, though he had been a keen gardener in his youth. He was a sufficiently well-known public figure to be paid to advertise whisky.
What then of his books? Most of his novels have dated badly, as most novels do: Whisky Galore and the Highland farces popular in his old age now seem too wordy, the humour a touch mechanical. Sinister Street still has a vitality that is now delightful, now disturbing. Vestal Fire and Extraordinary Women, the two Capri extravaganzas or conversation pieces which he wrote in the 1920s, still crackle a bit, the latter also being a humane and amusing treatment of lesbian relations; they seem to me to have lasted at least as well as Aldous Huxley’s comic novels of the same decade.
……..
In the 1930s Mackenzie embarked on what was intended to be his masterpiece, The Four Winds of Love. The first parts – East Wind and South Wind – have a splendid, sometimes enchanting, sometimes comic, vitality. East Wind reprises, or reworks, some of the material of Sinister Street, though without the sense of corruption that had so impressed Edmund Wilson. There is a dewy Edwardian youthful romance which retains some charm. Unlike in Sinister Street, Catholicism plays a big part, with important scenes set in Poland.
South Wind gives another, barely fictional, version of Mackenzie’s intelligence work, treated as material for comedy. If the ambitious enterprise falls away in later parts, and becomes a vehicle for Mackenzie’s views on life, politics and religion, this is because the playwright hero, John Ogilvie, becomes a terrible bore, putting everybody else and the world to rights. Nevertheless there is much worthwhile matter in the extravaganza. It was almost the end of his serious novel-writing career, and no wonder, but in his old age he wrote a very good novel, Thin Ice, about a homosexual politician, treated sympathetically.
Chapter & Verse is an occasional series on authors and Catholicism
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.