Cathi Unsworth
Hamilton’s third novel takes its name from a toy theatre and constructs a between-the-wars stage set of dreary provincial fleapit and transient West End glitter from personal experience of a profession that would dazzle, exhault and thwart him… Still observing from the wings, Hamilton was teetering before the obsessions that would shape his greatest work and sharpen his social satire.
Brodie HunterTwopence Coloured demonstrates Patrick Hamilton’s skill in revealing the cruel insecurities which under score so much supposedly civilised inter action.
Yet I sometimes feel that his mindsight in showing that life is not always what it appears to be affected his descriptive powers and leaves me at a loss as to whether he meant to be deliberately obscure or was, at times, simply a sloppy and hurried writer.
For example at the start of chapter 11 he refers to a milkman on his rounds which would be unlikely at four in the afternoon.
In chapter 14 reference is made to a “freezing summers’s evening” (page 167). Summer evenings in Britain can often be disappointingly chilly but are unlikely to be freezing.
There is reference to “flat hills” in chapter 15 (page 178) – “flattish” would have been better.
Most irritating of all there is a refernce at the end of chapter 17 to “the thing” happening on Wednesday when the start of the following chapter makes it clear that it actually happened on a Thursday..
Fabers have done a great service in reviving this novel and I remain a great fan of Patrick Hamilton but I often wonder if I am the only one to be perplexed by these apparent inconsistentancies.
Yours
Brodie Hunter
Richard T. KellyThanks for writing, Brodie. You are a close and adept reader, clearly, and all your points seem to me quite correct. I would only say that I’m not hugely surprised there were a few infelicities of style in Hamilton’s writing at the time – he was young, and writing fairly quickly, and these sorts of little glitches have never been uncommon even among writers of high distinction. Had he been writing 10 years earlier, at the onset of the age of the mass-market paperback, I’m fairly sure some corrections would have been taken in for a softcover edition…
