''The Divine and the Decay'' is a 1957 novel by the Welsh writer Bill Hopkins. It was republished as ''The Leap'', in 1984. It tells the story of the leader of a British right-wing populist party who has decided to have his internal rival assassinated. To provide an alibi for himself he stays on a small
Channel Island
The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...
, where he becomes fascinated by a very self-possessed young woman. It was Hopkins' first and only published novel.
Plot
Peter Plowart, the leader and co-founder of the right-wing populist New Britain Party has decided to have his party co-founder assassinated due to internal conflicts. He travels to Vachau, one of the
Channel Islands
The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...
, to hold a speech and thus give himself an alibi while the assassination is carried out. On the island he finds a young woman whose self-possession intrigues him and makes him want to conquer her. When the woman finds out about Peter's real reason for staying on the island, she decides that he has to die. A power struggle takes place between the two.
Colin Wilson
Colin Henry Wilson (26 June 1931 – 5 December 2013) was an English writer, philosopher and novelist. He also wrote widely on true crime, mysticism and the paranormal, eventually writing more than a hundred books. Wilson called his phil ...
, the book had its background in the nightly conversations the two had in Paris in 1953. Both Hopkins and Wilson admired a set of authors active around year 1900—
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
Anatole France
(; born , ; 16 April 1844 – 12 October 1924) was a French poet, journalist, and novelist with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters. He was a member of the Académie França ...
—and preferred these to the generations which had followed. Wilson attributed this to the atmosphere of defeat in the works of later generations; he exemplified this with the treatment of
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
in
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...
's influential ''
A History of Western Philosophy
''A History of Western Philosophy'' is a 1946 book by the philosopher Bertrand Russell. A survey of Western philosophy from the pre-Socratic philosophers to the early 20th century, it was criticised for Russell's over-generalization and omissio ...
'', where Nietzsche's use of the word "will" is reduced to being associated with
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. According to Wilson, both he and Hopkins found "will" to be "the only valid starting point for philosophy", and they both found Nietzsche's phrase about "how one becomes what one is" to be of central value.
The fictional island of Vachau is based on
Sark
Sark (french: link=no, Sercq, ; Sercquiais: or ) is a part of the Channel Islands in the southwestern English Channel, off the coast of Normandy, France. It is a royal fief, which forms part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, with its own set of l ...
. Hopkins visited Sark in 1956 to do research for the novel.
Publication
The book was accepted by
MacGibbon & Kee
The British publishing house of Hart-Davis, MacGibbon was formed in 1972 by its parent group, Granada. The parent company had acquired the publishing concern of Rupert Hart-Davis in 1963 and the house of MacGibbon & Kee (founded by James MacGib ...
at the height of the
angry young men
The "angry young men" were a group of mostly working- and middle-class British playwrights and novelists who became prominent in the 1950s. The group's leading figures included John Osborne and Kingsley Amis; other popular figures included John ...
movement, which Hopkins was associated with, and published in 1957. It was republished as ''The Leap'' by Deverell & Birdsey in 1984.
Reception and legacy
The book was heavily attacked by critics upon the publication.
Graham Hough
Graham Goulden (or Goulder) Hough (14 February 1908 – 5 September 1990) was an English literary critic, poet, and Professor of English at Cambridge University from 1966 to 1975.
Life
Graham Hough was born in Great Crosby, Lancashire, the son o ...
of ''
Encounter
Encounter or Encounters may refer to:
Film
*''Encounter'', a 1997 Indian film by Nimmala Shankar
* ''Encounter'' (2013 film), a Bengali film
* ''Encounter'' (2018 film), an American sci-fi film
* ''Encounter'' (2021 film), a British sci-fi film
* ...
'' called it "an adolescent power-fantasy, extremely shoddily written", and wrote:
What is surprising, after the history of the last thirty years, is that even the naivest masturbations of the most unhappy young man should be able to take this openly
Fascist
Fascism is a far-right, Authoritarianism, authoritarian, ultranationalism, ultra-nationalist political Political ideology, ideology and Political movement, movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and pol ...
form. The fact that this performance has been treated in some quarters with a moderate respect shows that there is a dangerous vacuum in our present culture that could easily be filled with highly unpleasant material; though not, I should have thought, with anything as poisonously silly as this.
According to Wilson, Hopkins remained self-confident on the surface despite the book's reception, but was shaken by what Wilson described as "character assassination", as opposed to normal literary controversy. When the typescript for Hopkins' second novel, ''Time and Totality'', was accidentally destroyed by fire, Hopkins did not bother to rewrite it.