“Greihound” and “How to become a lady” - two old English novels that first came out in Russian

About the heroic captain and an irresistible squeal

Literary critic Galina Yuzefovich talks about two English novels that first released in Russian: “Greihanda” by Cecil Scott Forester (in English was released in 1953) and “How to become a Lady” Francis Eliza Hodgson Berunet (1901). The first restrained and strictly describes the feat of the captain of the warship of George Krause, the second offers a joyful and very simple story of a poor English woman, who has achieved success with the help of her kindness and immediacy.

Cecil Scott Forester. "Greyhound". SPb.: ABC, 2020. Translation by E. Dobrokhotova-Maikova

In Russia, the author of the “sea” novels of Cecil Scott Forester is known mainly as the creator of a multi -volume saga about the English sailor of Napoleonic times by Horacio Hornblaue - romantic, picturesque and exciting. The romance of 1953 “Greihound” (in the original it is called “Good Shepherd”, and the Russian edition inherited its current name from a fresh adaptation with Tom Hanks in the main role) - a thing of a completely different nature, much more dry, compact and schematic. Romanticism in it is deliberately muffled, picturesqueness strives to zero, and a few adventures occur mainly in the head of the protagonist and are more like trigonometric tasks than dashing fights, chases and shootings. The minimum of adjectives and dialects, deliberately nondescript decorations, meager props-and yet, from this colorless, inexpressive material, the Forester manages to construct the text of the amazing, simply overwhelming tension and emotional power.

Through the Atlantic, from America to England, there is a convoy with a load in the amount of fifty million dollars. The merchant ships (personnel - two thousand people) accompany the escort of four warships (eight hundred and more souls of the team) - one American, one Canadian, one English and one Polish, miraculously escaping from the Gdansk harbor on the eve of the Nazi occupation and rushing to the Allied fleet. On the bridge of the flagship destroyer “Kiling” stands George Krause, the captain of the second rank of the US Navy, forty -two years old, the growth is average, the physique is average, the color of the eyes is gray. America entered the war recently, and this is its first combat mission in the full sense of the word, but it is precisely on Captain Krause that the lives of people and the safety of the cargo ultimately depend. In the thickness of the water, the “wolf flock” of German submarines droop in front of the escort, from which the ships of the military escort should protect their defenseless and slightly stupid sheep in the manner of shepherd dogs.

Such is the exposition of the novel, and, oddly enough, in the future it will remain almost unchanged. For two days, Captain Krause will stand on the bridge in the cold, darkness and icy splashes, feverishly trying to predict the actions of the submarine captain, losing people and ships, freezing to the bones, tormented by hunger, the desire to drink coffee and go to the galun. The shift will replace the shift, the gray sea will illuminate the deep bombs from the inside, torpedo attacks will be replaced by the gaps of the lull, the wind will intensify, and in the captain’s head, the captain’s head will constantly click the gears, which is gradually heavier and murmurous from forty -axial vigil, calculating the probabilities, laying the course and evaluating the effectiveness of subordinates.

In essence, Greihand is a monospace. Throughout all three hundred and fifty pages, we clearly see only the captain, the other characters are a phlegmatic radio operator from the Polish destroyer, the unperturbed Canadian captain, the ceremonial old admiral-respondent, who returned to the service, in order to take on the command of the escort, rudders, shuttle, telephone operators, artillerymen, artillery - All of them will remain faceless shadows or ghostly voices from the walkie -talkie.

We will not see the explosions, we will not experience glee from the fact that one (and maybe even two) enemy submarines still managed to let it be bottom, the author would not discharge unbearable tension abstract reasoning, as well as pictures and conversations - in a word, no special effects, only cold, danger, gray waves, sinuses, cosinuses and slyly growing numbers. Moreover, even the author outlines the figure of the protagonist as sparingly as possible: the entire biography of Dordj Krause - from childhood in a pastoral family to a predictably doomed late marriage, from outflowing pieces to career failures - fits in two insignificant pages at the very end of the novel.

Intentionally dried, schematizing, bleaching everything that can be dried, schematized and discolored, the foreman achieves an amazing one - and, it should be noted, directly opposite to the expected - effect. In his graphic, monochrome performance, the feat of Captain Krause (what he does, for all his everyday life and unfinition, undoubtedly, the feat and nothing else) not only does not look faded, but, on the contrary, acquires genuine, cleansed of everything of the superficial and distinctly timeless greatness. Admiral Nelson, on the eve of the Battle of Trafalgar, who turned to his people with the words “England is waiting for everyone to fulfill his duty,” could be proud of this approach.

Francis Eliza Hodgson Bernett. How to become a lady. Translation by N. Rudnitskaya. M.: Livibuk, 2021

The release of this book in Russian, most likely, was also helped by cinema: if it were not for the next large-budget film adaptation of the cult novel by the Francis of Eliza Bernett “The Mysterious Garden”, hardly anyone remembered one-not the most famous and certainly not the most successful-from its adult novels, published in 1901. The audience seems to have met the film on the “Mysterious Garden” without much enthusiasm, but the reader has every reason for joy and gratitude. “How to become a lady” is a real novel-humanitarian aid, generously replenishing many deficiency of ingenuous optimism, touching naivety, soft irony and a comfortable old-fashioned English.

All books by Francis Eliza Bernett - both children's and adults - are arranged according to one scheme: a hero (or more often the heroine) falls into constrained circumstances, but because of a simple and good disposition, and most importantly, the unshakable faith in people copes with all life turmoil. “How to become a lady” is hidden according to the same simple pattern. The main character Emily Foks-Siton, hopeless by the standards of her era, the old maiden of thirty-four years, was born in a noble family, but she has a penny behind her soul. Emily's survival depends entirely on those modest earnings that bring her instructions of rich and noble acquaintances, and on the location of the apartment mistress, whose young woman takes off the tiny room for pennies. However, Emily does not grumble for fate, she is sincerely grateful to everyone who is ready to use her services, works without lingering hands and how the child rejoices at the most insignificant luck that fell to her share.

Without noticing that in any situation he gives others much more than he receives in return, Emily herself does not know how irresistible it is. And of course, that is why Emily Fokss Siton, completely unexpectedly for himself, becomes the chosen one of the Marquis Walderherst, a rich widower of middle-aged, after long fluctuations in deciding to re-marriage and choosing between the first beauties of London light. However, wealth and loud title are not able to change the noble nature of the heroine for the worst - in wealth and glory Emily remains the same cheerful and responsive simpleton, which was in poverty and obscurity. It is these properties that allow her to triumph to get out of a risky confrontation with the failed and very insidious heir to the Marquis Walderherst, who thought to brutally take revenge on the one whom he blames in the collapse of his hopes for wealth.

“How to become a lady” is a very, very simple book, but in this simplicity there are thin and cute nuances. Bernett does not idealize his heroes to a small extent and allows himself a delicate, but quite distinct irony addressed to them. With all the charm of Emily, the woman is quite ordinary, and her adored spouse is a stale and stiff cracker with a caricature monocle in the eye, tragically unable to express affection and care. Cleanedly devoid of a romantic fleur, not too young, ridiculous in their beautifully blindness, protracted in a tight corset of social conventions and prejudices, and sometimes simply ridiculous, precisely because of their own imperfection, the heroes “how to become a lady” paradoxically can cause genuine sympathy and tenderness.

And their happiness, despite the surroundings of the luxurious English estate with all its indispensable attributes like soaked greyhounds, family portraits, oak panels and green meadows, is not the eternal love ecstasy of fairy -tale Cinderella and the prince, but the most commonplace, fragile and short -lived happiness of two single people - in a word, thus happiness, which is especially easy to empathize And nice.

Galina Yuzefovich