Back when colonialism was mainstream, English writers, possessed by a terminal bloating of manifest destiny, spat out novels the way modern governments spat out fossil fuel subsidies. Verbal diarrhea was liquid gold, ten-page monologues were celebrated as the zenith of intellect, and every character in every novelization was pulling a ‘Hello Fellow Kids’’ by making fun of the wealthy while being wealthy themselves.
The end of the 19th century saw the popping-off of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, Bran Stoker, etc., whose most successful works inevitably contained (presumed) supernatural nonsense. Paint a dog and boom, Hound of Baskerville; paint a portrait and boom, Dorian Grey; paint a nighttime sexual predator and boom, Dracula. It was a coal-burning Africa-divvying Marvel Cinematic Universe. Shame that Tom Cruise was not available to play the Mummy, or they could have built the Dark Universe when the alien dude from Scientology was still chilling in the volcano (I think?).
The smarmy smartassery of the writing from this period betrays an innocent complacency: the biggest problem facing their worlds were corrupt politicians, the out-of-touch upper class, unrequited love, unrequited ambition…a sort of everyday villainy that was blasted to insignificance by the onset of World War I.
Had Oscar Wilde survived until 1912, his career would not have survived. His Elon Musk-esque flair of pretending to meme on the absurdities of rich people while being absurdly rich himself persisted until the very last years of his life. Before his impromptu trip to prison (accused of the very thing he made fun of in his writing), his stories portrayed the rich the way Joaquin Phoenix portrayed the Joker – with satirical ambiguity. The subtleties were such that the shallow-thinking mouth-breathers of 1901 can hardly tell whether Dorian Gray or Lord Illingworth were supposed to be admired or despised.
Everything changed when Wilde went to prison. His career in England was ruined along with his finances. From that point onward, his work, understandably, became concerned with feeling sorry for himself and lamenting the suffering of the oppressed. Lengthy prostrations about moral righteousness vanished from his work, replaced by an unconditional, raw expose about, well, human cruelty.
His transformation from smartass to bleeding-heart was not shared by his contemporaries. Sherlock Holmes had to retire because World War I. His brand of English-gentlemanly crime-solving was rendered obsolete in the trenches, where as Wilde’s career may have struggled, had he lived.
Dunno what happened to Bran Stoker, but judging by my bookshelf, he was a one-hit wonder. Guess he didn’t know about sequels and licensed merchandising.
Anyway, this is actually a shilling blog. If you live in a town called Adelaide, come see Oscar Wilde’s A Woman Of No Importance here: www.trybooking.com/BUTQT. Otherwise, as always, keep peddling your MLMs and go fuck yourself.
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