Private Madness and Natalie, Natalia¹

       I first read Natalie, Natalia about seven years ago [1975]. I remember being dazzled by the wit and the romance, and it was not until later that I began looking to see exactly how either the political or the romantic story fitted together.  Then I began to realize that there was a remarkable economy at work, both stylistically and thematically.  Ostensibly Natalie, Natalia is the account written by the protagonist, Anthony Greville, of his transition from politician to writer.  These are interesting similarities between politicians and writers:  they are both in the business of representing people to themselves; both have the power of creating events and meanings (ordering people's lives) through mere articulation, as it were; and, as Mosley says, in order to be effective the strategies of both political action and of writing must be somewhat secret, for to state precise goals is only to organize the opposition and to make it unlikely that what is obtained will turn out to be what is really wanted.  It is especially important to note that these also appear to be the conditions of our relationship with ourselves, of each person's relationship with herself or himself.  Thus the similarities among three parallel relationships are both the central theme of Natalie, Natalia and the framework within which it is written.  Having said this, which tends to be so deadening, let me add that, yes, of course, in the book itself Mosley has created something sparkling and wonderful!

       Greville's story is essentially a religious allegory with an unconventional, demonic twist.  The spiritual journey is conventional in the sense that there is exceptionally strong Christian-Hindu religious symbology and strong Freudian-Jungian- Laingian psychoanalytic symbology.  The twist is that by combining these myths and models with his own more worldly wisdom, Greville is able to become somewhat god-like, and to make a go of it!  Accepting the central paradoxes in our nature and in the way that we have cast religion, he learns to maneuver around them to a more effective affirmation of male-female relationships and of life in general.  I am not going to be concerned very much with the details of plot interpretation; however it seems that this book has been found difficult partly because of plot complexities, so here, first, is an outline of one "basic plot," almost amusing in the way that it distorts and simplifies the book, but also, perhaps for that reason, somewhat helpful.

       Greville is middle-aged, successful in conventional terms, and still trying to understand himself, hoping to waylay himself like a bandit.²  He is going through a difficult time in his romantic life, juggling a wife and two mistresses (one of them Natalie), and finding that he may have to choose between his wife, whom he loves, and Natalie, whom he also loves. In his political life it seems that in order for him to maintain his integrity he will have to surreptitiously help a black man, Ndoula, escape from detention in Africa and then, to maintain his integrity, get out of politics.  The only complication in this is that he both appears to be becoming schizophrenic and does not appear to be becoming schizophrenic, claiming instead that he is using what are taken to be the symptoms of nervous breakdown as a kind of cover in order to allow him to indulge in some peculiar behaviour and, after he does help to free Ndoula in Africa, get away for a good think and a rest.  He returns to find that his wife is about to leave for Africa herself on a mission of mercy, perhaps accompanied by the politician who seems to be his double, Edward Jones. Having liberated his wife as well as the black man, Greville then goes to see Natalie, who, as it happens, is Edward Jones's wife.  I do earnestly hope that the reader will go to the text and discover firsthand why this "plot" seems ludicrous. Greville's own version pivots beautifully upon subtle uncertainties and symmetries - in fact so much so that a casual reader might miss key details and come to believe that, for example, Greville takes no action with Ndoula, or that it is obvious that Greville does have a breakdown, or that it is obvious that he does not have a breakdown, and so on.  If Greville's action is missed, then probably its significance is missed as well: that through all of this something in himself is freed.  I want to emphasize, however, that if Greville's role were made significantly more obvious, then the book might easily become a more ordinary story about either irresponsibility and stupidity or self-deception.  There is a compulsion to suppose that Greville either knew or did not know what his options were with Ndoula (or with his wife and Natalie, for that matter), but I have come to see that this is naive.  The major accomplishment of the book is that it generates a sense of that enormous realm in which people try to fit things together. Mosley does this not by describing the speculation, which would actually make it impossible to characterize Greville's true state, but by giving us a kind of formula and some nudges which enable us to try to fit things together on our own,

       Let me turn now to a different issue.  For a time I wondered how Greville would cope with Natalie and how he would get on after his wife returned from Africa.  He seemed to have achieved some new awareness of himself and of lots of other profound things, but I wondered whether it might not have been me, the reader, who had been waylaid like a bandit.  There is a sense in which the reader does have to be manipulated, especially in regard to a story such as this. But isn't Greville's style, continually witty, elusive, endearing and intimate, and marvelously rich in imagery, mainly a lure, perhaps opening exotic realms to the intellect and the imagination just so that something illicit can be slipped past the censor?  He does seem to be having rather a good time: we are more inclined to see and remember the possibilities in his world than the anguish,  He demonstrates some brilliant evasions, which give pleasure I think, and there is also, for example, his dalliance with his other mistress. She says, "Ah, you like that, don't you!" and the demon in us readily agrees.  However the censor is alert to pleasure and pain, taking these to be integral in the moral scheme, and is quick to construct a bleak account of Greville's behavior. On this reading his sense of having transcended his difficulties takes on the character of a delusion; he becomes a victim of his own projections and introjections.  And, as regards his "nervous breakdown ploy," the final question is always "But who except the half-mad would believe that feigned madness is a reasonable ploy?"   Well... I have indeed created another monster here!  I think it is obvious that there would be misconceptions in such an interpretation, not all of them connected with this book in particular.  Nevertheless - and without undertaking to expose the misconceptions - at the end of a long discussion about these matters I would still be willing to allow that this reading of Greville is half right: first, because Greville himself acknowledges that part of human nature is demonic, and, second, because I think that we can happily allow that Greville is half mad, and even, perhaps, envy him his madness.

       In Greville's defence we might argue that he is an unusually reliable narrator, here trying to win endorsement neither for his perceptions of the social environment (which are often cynical) nor for his moral, or theological, or political insights, convincing though they may be.  In both of these areas we would be hard pressed to successfully detach our judgments about sincerity and reliability from our presuppositions about the kind of life that is "worth living."  One of the characters suggests to Greville that he is putting himself outside human experience.  I think this is helpful because it starts us wondering what he would need to retain in order to both transcend his circumstances and remain human.  A determination to be impartial in this would perhaps leave of Greville only his agility of mind.  This is the only real leverage we have against Greville's entire experience.  It is not so much a matter of what he says as it is of the differences among the things he says, a function of linguistic nuances and a shifting vantage point.  I am not saying that we can completely detach this aspect from the rest of his character or personality, but I think it is only in the light of this more general assessment of his awareness that we feel confident in judging the sincerity or truth of his various observations and expressions of sentiment.  For instance, it is partly because we recognize how readily he can, if he chooses, subvert his own utterances or his context that we become especially alert to occasions when this is not occurring and, on these occasions, unusually receptive both to what he is saying and to what might be revealed about him.  In short, I think we do manage to find another vantage point from which to assess his behavior, and, therefore, if we do become his ally, it is not only because we are his intimates.

       It is important to try to avoid assimilating Greville's values into that ordinary world - the "censor's world" - of moral and intellectual conventions.  Greville is both saying and trying to demonstrate that there are inescapable paradoxes in man's conventions and in his nature.  From this perspective the grand ideas and rich imagery are much more than stylistic devices or thematic adornments; they are the framework of Greville's private adjustment to his experience and, to the extent that what he is doing works for him, part of an insight into how the world itself works.  Let me first deal briefly with the public, impersonal aspect of this. Greville's references to mythic figures and incidents are not the disconnected ramblings of the ignorant or mentally disturbed; they are readily seen to be hints toward an elaborate restructuring of mythic incidents and their significance.  We may consider this an unhelpful, even bizarre, way of interpreting our own experience, but I suspect that in this we would be partially deceived - as regards both its strangeness and its helpfulness.  There is no doubt that in this dimension of the book Mosley is making extremely valuable contributions to our means, as well as to our methods, of understanding ourselves. What, after all, does modern computer-man have to do with the major spiritual and ethical forces in western civilization?  I think it is very much to Mosley's credit that he is willing to take on such broad issues.

       The mental life to which we are given access in Natalie Natalia is a contrivance.  It would be a rare man indeed who could produce something so coherent and erudite as running commentary!  I think that what makes this possibility so absurd is our knowledge, from private experience, that there is nothing unfolding in ourselves that is even remotely similar to what is unfolding in Greville.  This is only partly because of that odd fact about narrative - which I think we can let go by here - namely, that it in some sense creates its objects in the course of their being characterized.  It is quite clear that if we were to undertake to characterize our mental lives the results would in most cases be far less interesting and far less coherent than what Mosley has given us. Reasons for this come forward quickly, of course, ranging from the simple observation that most of us are not very interesting or clever, to exceedingly complex views regarding the conventions of fictional narrative.  Somewhere in this we might also allege that there has been an impoverishment of our common fund of imaginative conceptions and characterizations - which would be a kind of sociological thesis.

       But let me leave all of this aside and focus instead upon Greville's particular circumstances. To him Natalie is sometimes a witch and sometimes an angel.  He constructs scenarios in which she is the villainess and scenarios in which she is the heroine.  At various times she is the personification of forces, qualities, objects and personages both real and mythical, and in one of these guises or another she plays a central role in his desires, motives, suspicions, beliefs . . , and so on.  To varying degrees this would be true of all of the other people in his environment.  This is just to say that he is in various kinds of relationships with these people.  Of course with Natalie it is a difficult love relationship.  We might speculate from this that it is only where we have special reasons - or make unusual efforts - to be interested or curious about another person's private life that we are inclined to give them and ourselves roles in imaginative scenarios.  It is probably not exactly this claim that we would want to accept, but I think the direction in which this discussion would go is pretty clear.  We may in the end agree that Greville's intensities and the rich imagery of his thoughts are to be construed as evidence of an unusually thorough understanding of his experience and of an unusual intimacy in his relationships.  At the very least we can say that in his public contrivance Mosley has given us a model for inspiration.
                                                                                                                                                             John Banks 1982
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NOTES

¹ I wish to thank Nicholas Mosley for the continuing discussion of his work, and for the continuing revelation.
² Nicholas Mosley, Natalie Natalia (New York:  Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1971): "In a dark wood, at the middle time of life, I went on trying to explain myself to myself. I  might waylay myself like a bandit,"  (p. 50)