First published in book form in the UK under the title Mike, September(?) 1916
Published in the US (1916/17) under the title Michael¹
(First read 23/05/2015)
¹ To be honest, Michael is the better title as that's how the hero's most often referred to.
THE REVIEWS
One feels somehow
that the writing of Mike […] imposed no particular strain
upon Mr E. F. Benson. It suggests a delightfully easy command of
material. But, of course, Mr Benson is a master of graceful
narrative, and it is perhaps a tribute to his power that he should
give the rather poignant situation to which his tale leads up so
simple and, in a sense, so charming a directness. The lucidity of
his examination of a mood and passion is delightful. The story turns
upon the war. Mike, otherwise Lord Comber, gives up the Army for
music, and is accidentally brought into contact with a young music
teacher, Hermann Falbe, and his sister, for whom he develops an
appreciation which in the case of the latter becomes love. The
Falbes are of mixed parentage, their father being German, and, though
they have lived their life in this country, Hermann is a German at
heart. One of the best things in the book is the description of his
emotions on paying a visit to his fatherland. When war breaks out
Hermann leaves England in order to fight for his own country, and
Mike rejoins the Army to fight for his. How, then, about the love
affair between Mike and Hermann's sister? The conflict of emotions,
personal and national, created by war and love is manifestly
intricate, but Mr Benson treats it so cleverly that the play of
feeling is easily followed. We cannot say that the novel is one of
his best. It is none the less an attractive story. The writing is
always pleasant, and the characterisation has a crisp distinction
which is refreshing to encounter. All the characters interest us in
some way, and their individual peculiarities are described with
admirable skill.
~Liverpool Post
and Mercury, 13/09/1916
The most human of romances that have been written about
the war.
~Punch,
quoted in newspaper ad of 09/10/1916
Wonderfully fresh and amusing.
~Westminster
Gazette, quoted in newspaper ad
of 09/10/1916
Mr Benson's masterpiece.
~Evening
Standard, quoted in newspaper ad
of 09/10/1916
It is not easy in times such as these to imagine a much
more trying lot than that of those whose sympathies are in any great
measure divided between two of the combatant nations by ties of
parentage, association, or marriage. Such a case it is, or rather
two such cases ~ for brother and sister are alike involved ~ that Mr
Benson brings us to contemplate. But that problem arises only in the
later stages of his story; in the earlier it is another case of
divided allegiance, that of a son called on to decide between dutiful
loyalty to a father's wishes and the sacrifice of his own feelings on
the one hand, and on the other the assertion of his right to live his
own life. Mr Benson has in this part taken care that our sympathies
shall be on the right side, for he has presented his hero in most
pleasing colours, as he has every right to do, and then, as if that
were not enough, he has sought to strengthen his case by representing
the father as an egregious ass and snob, self-centred, domineering, a
repulsive blend of self-important arrogance and pompous fatuity. And
just as we feel compelled to quarrel with his Lord Ashbridge, so do
we think he has erred in overdoing the ineptness of his Lady
Ashbridge and also of Mrs Falbe, who was also 'one of us'. Not even
the pathetic picture that comes later of Michael's touching devotion
to his mother can atone for the vacuousness of the initial portrait.
Lady Barbara, on the other hand, with her brisk and healthy vigour,
her since and humorous kindliness, is excellently drawn, though the
author puts an unnecessary strain on our credence when he makes her
husband ambassador. He makes a similar mistake, to our mind, in the
last scene but one of his novel. But the main material of the story
is excellent; the tracing of Michael's musical development is well
done; his devotion to Germany, the genuine outcome of his debt to
her, the fortnight at Bayreuth and Munich, with its revelation that
“Germany was music,” the awakening of his own powers under the
stimulus and skilful guidance of Hermann and Sylvia Falbe. And it is
well also that some among us should be reminded that the patriotism
of the German is in itself a deep-rooted and an ennobling thing.
“Scratch a German,” says Hermann, “and you find two things ~ a
sentimentalist and a soldier.”
~The
Birmingham Daily Post,
11/10/1916
A story of music,
love, and the war. Well written, sometimes even delightfully written.
The ending has a situation of grievous distress, but joined to it is
the triumph of faith and love.
~The Outlook
(US), 28/02/1917
In
Michael Mr. E. F.
Benson shows himself, as always, a very capable storyteller with no
genius to disarrange his neat workmanship. One habit of his he does
not outgrow, which seems to me a bad habit from the point of view of
workmanship: his habit of diffuse and repetitious dialogue. When two
or three of his people get to talking, we may be sure they will use
ten pages to say what a playwright would make them say in ten lines.
But there are readers who like this sort of garrulity (witness the
amazingly large constituency of Miss Ellen Glasgow), and no doubt
they are readers to whom the general ingenuousness of Mr. Benson
appeals. The Michael of this book is an English lord, very ugly and
sincere, who tires of being a Guardsman and determines to devote
himself to music. His father, the Earl of Ashbridge, is as highly
coloured a caricature of the British aristocrat as has ever appeared
on any stage. He is a snob, a martinet, a self-conscious ass, a
person with no dignity of character or conduct: certainly not a
gentleman. Well, of course he forbids Michael his music and orders
him back into the Guards. Luckily the young man's grandmother has
left him plenty of money. He
sets forth for Baireuth and Munich, as the first stages of his
musical journey, and falls in with a young Falbe, a brilliant
musician and pianist who is to be Michael's master and friend. Falbe
is half German, half English; but his German paternity determines his
allegiance when the test comes. In his companionship and that of his
sister Sylvia, a singer, Michael quickly finds himself. Almost at
once he shows ability as pianist and composer. Friendship also comes
to him, and love in the person of the beautiful Sylvia. So we have
our situation. Meanwhile there have been tremblings of the earth, and
suddenly the tempest of the war breaks forth. Falbe becomes all
German, Michael all English, and poor Sylvia is torn between. Thus we
are worked up to our catastrophe in the form of a chance encounter in
the trenches between Michael and Falbe... Michael shoots and kills
his friend, not recognising him until-the thing is done. The slayer
returns to England wounded, and Sylvia must be told. Here, evidently,
is a 'big scene' at hand. It is well, no doubt that Mr. Benson should
not have laboured it, but he somehow fails to make anything of it at
all. Michael tells the girl he has killed her brother, bursts into
tears, and she tells him it is all right. The fact is, Mr. Benson's
field is that of a mild social comedy, and his efforts at dramatic
intensity of mood are inadequate to the verge of banality. To a
point, there is characterisation here-—Michael seems real, the
Falbes seem real, despite their association with that man of straw
the Earl; but the action in which they are involved fails to come
home to us the moment it attempts the heroic plane.
~H. W. Boynton in The
Bookman (US), 03/1917
E. F. Benson has followed the lead of several English
novelists by including in his newest book, Michael, just
published by the George H Doran Company, a 'full-length description'
of the German Kaiser. Benson's hero, Michael, is a young Englishman
with a talent for the piano. The story opens before the war, and
Michael journeys to Munich, where he hears Tristan at the
Hof-Theatre. The Emperor is in the city, and having several years
before been the personal guest of Michael's distinguished father in
England, invites the young man to sit in the Imperial box with him.
Benson's description of the Kaiser is interesting.
~The Evening Post [Wellington, New Zealand],
28/04/1917
