The Sailor's Return by David Garnett

The Roots group had wide ranging discussion on David Garnett's The Sailor's Return, looking at a variety of themes.

Themes:

• Was David Garnett first and foremost a good story teller?
• The book was considered liberated and shocking when it was published. Does it still appear liberated and shocking?
• Does David Garnett present an unrelenting dark view of village life?
• What part does landscape play in the novel?
• Are there any stereotypical characters within the novel? 

The Sailor's Return at East Chaldon

A Good Storyteller?

• Although not felt to be great inspirational literature, it is a gripping story and interesting in the context of when it was written.
• A bit brief. More like a novella
• Very well pared down to essentials. Very pictorial, concrete writing
• Well structured, controlled by author. Folk / fairy tale structure – reader anticipates inevitability of something awful happening.
• Similarity to a children's story because very direct, straight to the point.
• Moore advised cutting prize fight as focus of story should be with Tulip (Garnett personally very interested in fighting)
• Needed to bring in an outsider (prize fighter) to move story on (kill William off)
• Detached/unemotional – was it because he wanted it to stand as a myth/legend a story that could play itself out again and again in different times
• How convincing is William’s decision to marry Tulip?  Did he have to marry her after ravishing her? Was it to escape beheading? For money? For love? Or foolhardy, impetuous behaviour?
• Neither William or Tulip had much time for the villagers. Discounted their tittle tattle which reflected serious feelings. No attempt to integrate
• William unimaginative – didn’t think how difficult it would be for Tulip to live in an English village

Liberated and Shocking?

• What does this mean? How does it apply to 1925 when published?
• Shocking in that apparently well meaning and kind villagers can become cruel, prejudiced bullies?
• How far might this still happen today?
• David Garnett writing with a liberated attitude – black female lead character for first time. Convincing description of Tulip as a beautiful young woman, and of her life in Dahomey. (Benin).
• Based on Richard Burton’s account of Dahomey and its customs in ‘A Mission to Gele' 1864. (available on line) Garnett mixes fact with fiction. Some felt this was one of the most authentic parts of the book.
• Is the shocking thing the fact that William has brought Tulip (and his relationship with her) to a quiet country village? Or was William just naïve – he wanted to get a good pub business going somewhere where there was no competition.
• Villagers only accept Tulip when she is in the servant role at the end and has lost her looks.
• Is there a deliberate intention to shock and make the readers of 1925 sit up and think about their prejudices?
• Only 0.28% of population foreign born in 1858
• Description of baby’s death detached and shocking.
• Is the ending not liberated?– Tulip has learnt to know her station in life, Garnett makes her ugly– or is this satirical.
• Reflections on attitudes of 1920’s and the modernist perspective
• Written when ideas of the noble savage prevalent (Gaugin) and behavioural scientists looking at human behaviour in Africa (Leonard Woolf – Empire and Commerce). There was 'Scientific racism'. Observing human behaviour in its social context. This along with the modernist perspective of the writer allowing the story to tell itself could explain the unemotional tone, although there is a lot of humour.
• Some readers puzzled by Garnett’s restraint and not sure what to make of it. Felt uncomfortable with his narrative voice – is he unintentionally racist too?
• Not first black woman in literature. (Virgil)
• Expectation that blacks are slaves. Villagers upset because Tulip dressed in finery.  Accept her at the end when she is reduced to poverty and servitude.
• Tulip’s family involved in slave trade
• Language shocking today but written in 1926, set in 1858.  Remember gollywogs and Little Black Sambo not seen as shocking as late as 1950’s
• Whites would be treated as outcasts in Africa
• Also, all about class. Chalden Herring class ridden (as is Dahomey)
• Tulip not faultless or from a perfect culture

Are characters stereotypical?

• Some felt Tulip to be a cardboard cut out (had Garnett actually met any black people?), others felt she was feisty, had been transported into a completely alien world, was doing her best to make sense of it and behaved with great courage because of her upbringing and stays in control. How far is Garnett being satirical?
• Tulip’s reflections that although her people were cruel and savage and that there are only good people in England was a very telling ironical comment on western attitudes and human nature but this voice not consistent throughout the book.
• Sister Lucy is stereotypical.
• Doesn’t explore characters’ feelings much– detached.  Is this a weakness or a strength because ironically detached?
• Who is main character – William or Tulip?
• William strong, brave, courageous, foolhardy.  Stereotypical sailor
• Calling her Tulip removes her from her culture and childhood as a princess

Landscape

• Generic landscape – a backdrop for the stories rather than almost becoming a character as in Hardy or Dickens.
• Some description of landscape in arrival in Maiden Newbarrow, and ride down to the sea, but unless you know Chaldon Herring, it could be anywhere.
• Many bird references which we will try to follow up.
• Dahomey descriptions good, but some inaccuracies (there are no elephants in Dahomey)  Did Garnett research lots of African countries and amalgamate his research? Known that he used Richard Burton's book covering his experiences in Dahomey

The altar stone in the entrance of The Sailor's Return

Religion

• What is Garnett’s view? Was it similar to that of T F Powys who after a religious upbringing threw off many of the conventions and was known as a philosophical, spiritual and wise man?
• Is Garnett sceptical of all religion? He satirises Tulip’s beliefs along with Christianity – as long as ceremonies are carried out all will be well.
• Rev Cronk is partly a stereotypical character (humour of his escapade in the ditch), but there is also something threatening about him and the power he has over the community and there is a missionary element.
• Ultimately the story makes you think about your prejudices and the fact that no one likes what is out of the ordinary.

The Ending

• Some felt the ending disappointing (good storyteller apart from the ending). Or, is the ending built up to throughout the novel – danger and resentment growing although William is blind to it?
• Is the ending influenced by T F Powys’ style of writing – short, sharp and final?
• Harry was understanding and supportive all the way through – is the way he abandons Tulip at the end shocking or just out of character?
• Did the prize fighting unbalance the plot and make the ending melodramatic?
• Garnett’s friend, the writer George Moore, had been reading the script as it was written and advised him that the story of a publican becoming a prize fighter and being killed was irrelevant to the subject of his bringing a black girl to live in an English village and the racial antagonism it aroused. A long description of William becoming a prize fighter and the fight that lead to William’s death was cut and the story changed to the fight at the pub. It is possible the ending that replaced the prize fight did not fully meld into the unity of the story

The original inn sign at The Sailor's Return

Additional Information and Related books:

Virginia Woolf
Maupassant ‘Boitelle’
Kafka 'Metamorphosis'
Conrad ‘Heart of Darkness’Virginia Woolf

Click here to read an excellent biography of David Garnett and the Bloomsbury Group.