Talk:Dornford Yates
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[edit] Lower Than Vermin
"an unfortunate hysterical rant in which Mercer defends his anti-Semitic and highly class-conscious attitudes"--this is a highly tendentious overstatement but I decline to engage in an editing war.
[edit] anti-Semitism
I beg leave to take issue over the accusation of anti-Semitism (although, in the interests of avoiding an edit-war I shall decline to re-edit the article to remove them, as I am aware my edits would be reverted instanter). Granted Yates' writings include unpleasant Jews. They also include unpleasant members of several other races not least Germans and (in some cases) Americans. It is, in several cases, arguable that what Yates is attacking are people who exhibit the traits attached at the period to members of the Jewish race (especially financial ruthlesness and commercial fraternity of an almost Masonic intensity) whether or not they actually are Jewish. Equally I would argue that he sheds this trait as his writings progress, making it more and more clear that, accustomed as he was to an English mileu of the pre-Wars and inter-War years, he found certain aspects of maodernity repellant not least the insistence by the Socialists of his era in britain, on dismantling the past for the sake of the dismantling, and despite any injury that they might cause. --Simon Cursitor 14:31, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Yates and Anti-Semitism
I must disagree with the suggestion that Yates wasn't anti-semitic. It is clear throughout his work that not the majority of 'villains' in his stories are intended to be recogised as Jewish. This is demonstrated through physical descriptions, style of dress and the 'dialect' in which some of them speak. All of these rely on widely understood (in their day) stereotypes of Jewishness.
None of this is especially surprising, given how widely-accepted such anti-semitism was in popular English fiction of the early and mid-20thC. You only need to compare Yates to John Buchan, the author his fiction most obviously references, to see the similarity between Yates' characterisations of Jewish villains and Buchan's consistent vilification of Jews.
What is also striking about Yates is the bitterness which underlies his surface humour. The sense of class entitlement, and the increasing loss of that entitlement as the 20thC progresses, is extremely vivid. This becomes especially dominant in later works such as As Berry and I Were Saying, where humour is more or less absent, and the book functions as a sustained complaint against the loss of upper-class privilege. These features are all the more startling given that Mercer himself appears not to have been born into the world of privilege which he describes.Jill Lenhart 19:21, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Language
I have changed 'accomplice' to 'colleague' as a less judgmental assessment of Mansel and Chandos's relationship and mutual activities! I am a bit concerned about the language of this article in general: "sentimental romances", "spectacularly well-crafted", "unfortunate hysterical rant". More neutral language would be desirable. And could a citation please be given for "Snobbery with violence"? Robina Fox 19:42, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
- Here is the quotation from Forty Years On (1972) by Alan Bennett: "Sapper, Buchan, Dornford Yates, practitioners in that school of Snobbery with Violence that runs like a thread of good-class tweed through twentieth-century literature." Robina Fox 23:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Possible Factual Error
The text says he was a pupil to a solicitor, and was later called to the Bar. Solicitors are not members of the Bar -- to be called to the Bar, Mercer would have been a pupil to a barrister. --ukexpat 14:43, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
According to Smithers' biography, there was still a means for this to happen in the Edwardian era. RGCorris (talk) 12:20, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Misreading of Berry books?
The section on Yates' work which states that, 'They capture the self-confident social attitudes of the English upper middle classes of their time.' is a misreading of the 'Berry' books. Firstly, the characters are of the upper classes, not upper-middle classes (and that is a very significant distinction in this context). Also, they actually articulate the erosion of self-confidence and of course of actual wealth among the upper classes following the end of World War I. This is especially evident in The House That Berry Built and As Berry and I Were Saying, the two least 'comic' of the series, but it does come through in even the most light-hearted Berry novels and stories too. Indeed, that seems to be the point of the series. They're an elegy for a way of life that was already disappearing as Yates wrote the stories. Could this be reflected in the article? Jill Lenhart 19:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)Jill Lenhart
[edit] Plot Summaries
I think a useful way to expand the Dornford Yates page would be to provide more plot summaries for the novels/stories. I see that someone has done this already for The House That Berry Built. I could do about a dozen more, if people don't have any objections? Mind you, I've never added whole pages and made live links before in Wikipedia, so the technicalities might take me a while! Jill Lenhart 18:11, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Please do !RGCorris (talk) 12:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
