, and seen
how Zuleika, as a character and a novel, is such a strong presence in Max’s
life long before the text’s publication (he began writing it in 1898), I feel
justified in using her to round off this very Victorian series.
Zuleika Dobson is a satirical novel about a girl so attractive
she makes the students at Oxford University commit suicide en masse, destroying
the city and its institutions. An untalented magician, Zuleika’s appeal is
partially due to her beauty and partially to the contradictions of her
character which make her unable to love anyone:
“I could no more marry a man about whom I
could not make a fool of myself than I could marry one who made a fool of
himself about me. Else had I long ceased to be a spinster”.
While the
novel moves away from Zuleika at times – whether to the history of Oxford’s
most elite drinking society, to the birds which are harbingers of death for
holders of a particular dukedom, or to the muse of history Clio – she dominates
the novel, and also seems to have dominated its creation.
In his
letters, Max even uses the word ‘Zuleika-ing’ to denote the act of writing and,
in 1904, not only does he seem to have a very clear idea of the eventual plot, but
he’s also personifying his work, talking about his inability to write a
‘skeleton’ of the rest of the novel, without it becoming a ‘full-fleshed
figure’.
At the
novel’s appearance, Max writes the following note to Robert Ross (who had been
a close friend of Oscar Wilde):
‘My dear Bobbie, Poor old Zuleika! She is
at length to be dragged out, blinking and staggering, into the light of day.
And Heinemann [his publisher] will be sending her to the Reform Club, to wait
for you there. Be kind, be courteous, to the hag. Incline your ear to her
mumblings. Pretend not to hear the horrid creakings of her joints. Tell her she
does not look a day older than when you saw her or at any rate her head and
shoulders all those years ago. Don’t hint to her that she makes a goblin of the
sun. Yours affectionately, Max’.
Here we
see Beerbohm referencing the long gestation period his novel has been through.
And we also see him using an identification between Zuleika the woman and Zuleika the novel to reference the
faults in his writing (mere ‘mumblings’ with ‘creaking…joints’), while
simultaneously pleading for kind critical judgement on them (without seeming to
plead for himself).
With the
reference to Zuleika’s head and shoulders as having appeared first, Max also
seems to be alluding to one of the most famous stories of male birth, the
emergence of Artemis from the head of her father Zeus. Writing a novel as a
sort of pregnancy is an idea he returns to again in a letter to Arnold Bennett:
‘You mustn’t expect from me a
‘diabolically ingenious defence’ of Zuleika,
any more than you would expect a woman who has just borne a child to be
diabolically ingenious of defence of that child… “Madam, this baby is in many
respects a very fine baby. I observe many inimitable touches of you in it. But,
Madam, I am bound to say that its screams are more penetrating than a baby’s
screams ought to be. I notice in its complexion a mottled quality which jars my
colour-sense. And I cannot help wishing it were” etc. etc.… Will the young
mother floor you in well-chosen words?’
Max’s
easy and familiar references to ‘Zuleika’ in his letters demonstrate
beautifully the strong connection between artist and work (even an artist as
humorous and, at times, flippant as Beerbohm). They also show the fascination
‘she’ as a character and as a project held over Max across several decades.
Zuleika’s appeal may have decimated Oxford, but it has cemented Beerbohm’s
place in literary history.
This is
the last in my Victorian Alphabet series, so let me know if you have any new
series ideas – here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist.
And, if you want to find out more about Beerbohm’s Oxford, then click here for
my top tourist tips for Victorianists who find themselves in England’s best
city!
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