In Partial Disgrace

by Charles Newman, Joshua Cohen (Introduction), Ben Ryder Howe (Editor)

The long-awaited final work and magnum opus of one of the United States’s greatest authors, critics, and tastemakers, In Partial Disgrace is a sprawling self-contained trilogy chronicling the troubled history of a small Central European nation bearing certain similarities to Hungary—and whose rise and fall might be said to parallel the strange contortions taken by Western political and literary thought over the course of the twentieth century. More than twenty years in the making, and containing a cast of characters, breadth of insight, and degree of stylistic legerdemain to rival such staggering achievements as William H. Gass’s The Tunnel, Carlos Fuentes’s Terra Nostra, Robert Coover’s The Public Burning, or Péter Nádas’s Parallel Lives, In Partial Disgrace may be the last great work to issue from the generation that changed American letters in the ’60s and ’70s.

Genres: Fiction, American, Literature, Novels, Literary Fiction

337 pages, Paperback

First published March 5, 2013

About the author

Charles Hamilton Newman was an American writer, editor and dog breeder. Newman’s best-known work is The Post-Modern Aura, a scathing critique of contemporary culture that, unusually for a work of criticism, was reviewed and discussed in over thirty magazines, including general interest publications such as Time.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Partial Disgrace is a family chronicle of a family living on a grotesque estate located in some bizarre canine utopia:
That’s a father –

How does one thing become another? That was his métier. What exactly is it that the hero doesn’t know before he becomes, well, quite something else? That was his subject. What is the opposite of an epiphany? That was his method. What is the opposite of a hangover? That was his temperament.

That’s a mother –

Technically speaking, Mother came from the moon: not that her dark side never showed, but often when you looked up, half of her was missing.

That’s the son, who is also a main narrator –

My feminine soul was thus always in search of my body, mourning the disappearance of the old kind of artistic male who has died out; a virgin body being serviced by a non-virgin heart. I was a good little boy but a bad little girl, a winning combination. To preserve the appearance of manliness I would eventually take refuge in alcoholic stupor, from which I emerged a drunken and diseased victor, while retaining the eternal priority which was the delight of my feminine soul. I was one of the dead with whom the living have to reckon, a salon bandit, a bathhouse nymph, who would put in jeopardy men’s calm, their faith, and what’s more, their cynicism; female preference always modifying male domination.

The novel also boasts some fine instances of canine psychoanalysis:

As for little Topsy, who can say? She is either a little too absent or a little too present, and always a little off center. Beauty with nothing else is worse than shit. You can mix all the raisins you want with turds, but they’re still turds.

The main merit of the book is its radical and overgenerous bizarreness.
Idées fixes of the masters replicate idées fixes of their dogs.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 5 out of 5]

Conceived as an epic on an even-more-epic scale than Fuentes’s Terra Nostra, Charles Newman’s unfinished masterpiece ranks up there with Ralph Ellison’s second book as the most tragically incomplete novel in the realm of top-flight literature. Like Ellison, Newman is capable of writing bewitching and unforgettable sentences, and their failure to produce a coherent vision in the space of several decades ranks high on the list of crimes against readers. Newman was the founder of TriQuarterly, one of the most pivotal quarterlies in American letters, and a notorious wildman: philanderer, drinker, merrymaker. As Joshua Cohen states in his excellent intro, Newman’s arrogance and doggedness was no match for his lusts and boozing and his work became mired in pointless research. In Partial Disgrace is comprised of one coherent novel told by Iulus, son of dog trainer Felix, who takes The Professor’s mutts under his wing. Alongside this digressive, free-floating plot, are descriptive adventures in Cannonia, Newman’s fictional country—a Euro-Asian nation in the mould of Nabokov’s Zembla. Since the plot is minimal and limited to a series of long scenes-as-chapters, the masterful dialogue, description and philosophising hold this admirable cut-and-paste piece together. The editor has sculpted Newman’s aborted notes into a exemplary taster of the nine-book epic we might have seen had Newman been a different man in a different time and place. Essential.

[Paul H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

After working through all of the big names (and medium-sized names) in twentieth-century literature, I realized, with some trepidation, that I would now be forced to read the entire Dalkey Archive in order to find anything else of value. The bad news is that 80% of the Dalkey Archive is terrible; third-rate "experimental" fiction by authors who were rightfully forgotten by the critical establishment.

The good news is that the other 20% is life-changingly good: In Partial Disgrace is a masterpiece. Charles Newman is a prose magician, and there's a lightness and humor that is sorely missing from the turgid so-called "playfulness" of most postmodern authors. The plot does not sound promising (fictional Eastern European country, meta-fiction, etc.) but the execution is 10/10.

The strongest influence is Nabokov, Pale Fire in particular; there's also a bit of Pynchon's wacky humor and philosophical musings . . . the thing is, though, that on a sentence-by-sentence basis, Newman actually outstrips Nabokov (!). As odd as this sounds, Newman is arguably a major American author, the only one I can think of who is actually obscure -- unlike Gaddis, who is famous for being obscure and is therefore not actually obscure -- though his earlier novels are DeLillo-lite, alas.

[Eric Lundgren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hopefully this publication will revive interest in the idiosyncratic work of Charles Newman. Initially conceived as a three-part, nine-volume(!) opus set in the fictional kingdom of Cannonia, based on Soviet-era Hungary, *In Partial Disgrace* presents only the scaffolding of this grand project, assembled from papers the author left behind after his death in 2006. Dalkey Archive Press has put together a lovely edition with a very smart intro from Joshua Cohen and a reminiscence from Newman's cousin, Ben Ryder Howe. The novel has elements of 18th-c. pastoral but its heart is postmodern, full of ironic wit, textual layering, and dubious narration. The plot as such centers around Semper Vero, estate of the country squire and expert dog trainer Felix Psalmanazar, who forms a contentious friendship with a Freud-like Professor who seeks cures for his troubled animals. A secondary plot involves Frank Rufus Hewitt, an American intelligence agent trying to sort through his dreamlike military memories of Cannonia. The pleasures of this book are local, on the setting and sentence level. It has its slow stretches, but adventurous readers will be compensated with epigrams on almost every page -- "the interoffice memo is truly the cruelest art form," to quote just one -- meditations on history, a near-Nabokovian opulence of language, and the vertiginous pleasure of exploring ruins in a strange land.

More here: http://www.quarterlywest.utah.edu/iss...

[Jack Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Partial Disgrace is an opening prelude for a performance that doesn’t ever materialize. Newman passed away before he could finish and what’s here was collected and put together posthumously. The story was meant to be a saga of multiple volumes detailing the imagined country of Cannonia, a sort of mystical Midwestern kingdom of Europe, as it transforms across the 20th century. What is collected here is an abbreviated overview through the eyes of an eccentric, struggling family of dog-breeders living on an isolated estate.

The opening chapter you are in the body of a spy, tumbling down from the night skies. Upon crash-landing, your enigmatic contact Iulus Pzalmanazar is immediately there to guide you as you traverse through forest and field to his deserted property with lots of questions bubbling up. But once the brief chapter ends the POV is handed to Iulus who you spend most of your time with in this largely plotless novel. Really, this novel is largely almost sceneless as well. It’s titled and framed as a fictional memoir but it’s moreso about getting lost in a swirl of stylishly wrought sentences, landscapes, and ideas. The story is full of left-field aphorisms/meditations being spouted off by strange but still textured characters. It helps that, unlike a number of other post-modern writers who made/make similar attempts in engineering this type of novel, Newman was actually funny. In Partial Disgrace being unfinished means the flaws are plain to see, nothing quite coheres together, but there’s also a lingering ambiguity that gives it a quiet power.

Edit: Yeah, bumping this to a fiver. Can’t let go of that final chapter, so good.

[Aravindakshan Narasimhan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pointless work!

[Lobstergirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clever but slightly soulless, somehow, and utterly exhausting. Exhibit A in how genius at the sentence level doesn't always translate into something bigger or worthier.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truncated masterpiece, like a literary Venus de Milo except unfinished instead of lost. Either way, perdition claimed its share. A perfect failure precisely incomplete enough to allow longing and directionless daydreaming to give it the limbs it never grew and frankly doesn't need, Newman's epic ambitions notwithstanding. Wrenched from oblivion, its resurrection and application to the afterlife are thanks to a sage relative and the saints at Dalkey Archive who perceived in the fragments whole universes of the erudite and absurd. It does not matter in the least what it is about. Say--dogs. Or marriage. War(s). Friendship. Legacies coveted and abhorred. Something about espionage. Zauberburg-cum-Zembla-cum-Cannonia.

Though razor sharp and diamond tipped, the sentences have too much good humor and gratitude for meager pleasures to be bitter and never give the impression of desperate vainglory. Ennui and Weltschmerz and cynicism are not--and cannot!--be denied, but their poisons can only wreck those whose lives avoid the antivenoms of love and literature. There's a distinct chthonic updraft by which Newman would like to ventilate the cloistered pretensions of church, state, school, and career, or any other sclerotic form of a partial truth that forgets its mastery of the universe is due only to ignoring most of it. While by no means a peasant's paean to The Simple Life (every breed of small-mindedness is excoriated), Newman insists that the examined life worth living absolutely must include a woman, a dog, a drink, and a walk in the woods. These don't belong to the man, the man is entirely made of them. If that sounds like an improbably enlightened American frontiersman's attitude, it could only be realized as far--ideologically and geographically--from America as possible, yet seeded right in the sterile middle of it all. Through carelessness, incapacity, and indifference, the few roots and shoots comprising this trunk cut off in its bloom make a humble monument to what life, utterly corrupted, can still strive for despite itself and everything arrayed against it.

[Brent Hayward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Newman was an idiosyncratic writer (and, apparently, individual) whose work brings to mind David Foster Wallace and his ilk but with the Euro vibes of Raymond Rousell’s best filtered through Wes Anderson. In Partial Disgrace was never finished during Newman’s life -- not even close. His vision was a seemingly unachievable 9-volume set; this Dalkey edition got cobbled together by his nephew, from notes found in the author’s cluttered office, months after his death. The result, though, is astonishingly coherent-- though short-- once its odd logic becomes clear. An American spy parachutes into a fictitious, landlocked country. His contact there is the son of a dignitary father and beautiful, indigenous mother. The family lives on a whimsical estate where all forms of dogs, real and otherwise, are bred and revered. (Newman was a dog-breeder who lived and worked a great deal in Hungry.) From the estate's environs, a local Professor, who struggles with crazy dogs of his own, visits often, seeking advice and intervention, receiving discourse, friendship, and ornate meals-- usually accompanied by a date who also needs various amounts of help. The scenes and conversations are eloquent and bizarre. Rituals and their accoutrements verge on the fantastic. Each sentence of the book is off-kilter and I’ve not encountered as many new words as I did in this book since I was a kid. Excellent.

[C. Lee Hodges · Rating 4 out of 5]

Closing the pages of something unfinished and being asked to judge it as if it was, is always difficult.
It is clear this is not the full narrative, but the scraps that are here masquerading as a whole are delicious to traipse among and I mourn to think Newman's grand project will never be finished.
If this was it, complete and to the author's liking, it would warrant three stars. While I reveled in Newman's control of language, it is unfocused and leaves a lingering feeling you read nothing of substance. Thankfully it abounds in style and many a time i found myself cursing my laziness, as I wanted to jot down phrases, but couldn't bring myself to pause my reading.
My foreknowledge in its posthumous release allows me to forgive its incompleteness, and give it an undeserving five-star rating, much like "Firefly" fans heap praise on what is clearly an abortion.

EDIT: I have decided to average out the deserved three- with the language-loving five-star to its middle ground four-.

[sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

while this is the only newman i've read, i think marketing in partial disgrace as his magnum opus is a bit much. as the foreword and introduction make clear, this is a posthumous release, originally intended as the "overture" to an astoundingly long work that intended to chart the history and life of a fictional european nation. and while this book functions as such, i don't believe for a second that it is a finished work. the pale king was unfinished/posthumously published, but it still hung together. i don't think this does.

that said, most of what is here is wonderful. this book is odd, but not quite as strange as the press kits might have you believe. newman is an amazing stylist – like gass (who is quoted on the back), he has an ear for the music of language, a penchant for lists, and an exhaustive (and cross-disciplinary) vocabulary. it's worth the read purely for the technique/bizarre humour.

[Kobe Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book seems to mostly be about dogs

[World Literature Today]

"Newman’s writing is as fabulous and convoluted as Cold War rhetoric, which the author describes as a 'bizarre sideshow of poetic illusions.' This is a novel built upon a cloak of secrecy that continually flashes an interior lining of dazzling shot silk." - Christopher Willard, Calgary

This book was reviewed in the July 2013 issue of World Literature Today. Read the full review by visiting our website: http://bit.ly/1aJfY8v

[Tobias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review TK.

[Matt Leininger · Rating 3 out of 5]

"only the most courageous of men could admit that as their knowledge increased by infinite magnitudes, their basic ignorance had scarcely diminished."

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't normally go for "unfinished" works, but this one was considered complete enough for my interest and it boasted some potent writing.

The first book in what was intended to be an epic trilogy of historical fantasy, this prologue offers a string of loosely connected scenes in a fantastical Boschian landscape that almost propels us into a twisted plot of intercontinental espionage between East and West. The son of a prolific dog trainer tells stories of his father's friendship with the Professor (literally Freud) and their endless philosophizings and polemics, while a retired U.S. military general tries to infiltrate the people of Cannonia and the nation's geopolitical advantages. But with the bulk of it left unfinished (Newman had the nerve to die), we only get a tantalizing whiff of whatever's to come. Here are some tasty morsels I picked out:

"Looking as he was through the rose window of the West, when the old gods were dying but Christ had not yet appeared, the warrior-prince-against-his-will had come to believe that if the soul were virtuous, one might look out to eternity, and there would be nothing new for future generations to witness, for the world is both good beyond improvement and evil beyond remedy."

"So it was that we came to rest on Cannonia's watery border, about to read her secretmost entrails, prepared to open a spacious wound in Hell's own soil, dig out ribs of gold, and build Pandemonium. We had no experience in that long tradition in which the cheerful and well-intentioned tyrant, with his perverse magnanimity and wooden hug, enters the ghostly empire to pick up the beautiful corpse, only to have it fall apart in his hands. Indeed, we believed, even more than the communists, that we had captured a stage in history -- the worst thing, according to Astingi lore, that can befall a people."

[Tom Long · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing is beautiful and there are many fascinating concepts in respect of setting and character, but the disjointedness and large gaps in the narrative are disconcerting. I knew going in that it's an unfinished work; perhaps it was too unfinished to publish. Or maybe the cursorily treated "spy" plotline could have been discarded in favor of focusing exclusively on the interesting relationship between Felix and The Professor. I think I'll remember many passages and ideas from this book, but I can't rate it more highly than three stars. It was difficult to stick with and finish.

[Charles Cohen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Newman can write like a motherf$%^er, but it was clear this was just the beginning of a much longer story that sadly was never completed. It was a beautiful story of male friendship, and the connection between a man and his dog(s).