The World My Wilderness
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''The World My Wilderness'' is a novel published in 1950 by the English novelist, biographer and traveller
Rose Macaulay Dame Emilie Rose Macaulay, (1 August 1881 – 30 October 1958) was an English writer, most noted for her award-winning novel '' The Towers of Trebizond'', about a small Anglo-Catholic group crossing Turkey by camel. The story is seen as a spiritu ...
(1881–1958), the last but one of her novels.


Plot summary

In the summer of 1945, Helen Michel is living in Southern France in the difficult aftermath of the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, grieving for her late husband, a French collaborator called Maurice Michel who was mysteriously drowned in the final months of the
German occupation of France The Military Administration in France (german: Militärverwaltung in Frankreich; french: Occupation de la France par l'Allemagne) was an interim occupation authority established by Nazi Germany during World War II to administer the occupied zo ...
. Helen is beautiful, lazy, the daughter of an
Irish peer The Peerage of Ireland consists of those titles of nobility created by the English monarchs in their capacity as Lord or King of Ireland, or later by monarchs of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It is one of the five divisi ...
, a painter and scholar who is fond of gambling. Her seventeen-year-old daughter Barbary Deniston (Helen left her first husband, an English barrister) and her fifteen-year-old step-son Raoul Michel have run wild, associating with the Maquis, helping a guerrilla band with schemes of
sabotage Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a ''saboteur''. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identitie ...
and harassing the
Germans , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...
. Helen also has a two-year-old son by Maurice Michel, whom Barbary dotes on, but mother and daughter have grown apart. Helen is visited in
Provence Provence (, , , , ; oc, Provença or ''Prouvènço'' , ) is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the Italian border to the east; it is bor ...
by her English son Richie Deniston, Barbary's brother, who after fighting in the War is now a
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...
undergraduate. When he returns to England, Helen sends Barbary back with him to live in
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
with their father, Sir Gulliver Deniston KC, and to attend the
Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...
. Sir Gulliver has a new wife, the ultra-conventional Pamela, and she and Barbary take a dislike to each other. At the same time, Raoul's grandmother Madame Michel also sends him to London, to live with an uncle who is in business there. Barbary has no wish to adjust to the respectable life of her father and stepmother. She discovers the bombed but flowering wasteland of the
City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...
in the shadow of St Paul's Cathedral. Here she and Raoul find an echo of the wilderness of the Maquis and make friends with the spivs and
deserter Desertion is the abandonment of a military duty or post without permission (a pass, liberty or leave) and is done with the intention of not returning. This contrasts with unauthorized absence (UA) or absence without leave (AWOL ), which ...
s living on the fringes of society. Barbary and Raoul adopt an empty flat in Somerset Chambers and a bombed-out Anglican church, St Giles's, where Barbary paints a mural of the Last Judgment and confronts the fear and emptiness within herself. Poetic descriptions of the past and present of the City of London and its ruined churches are intertwined with Barbary's moral and religious confusion. On a family holiday to the
Scottish Highlands The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland S ...
, staying with an uncle who is a leading psychiatrist, Barbary becomes alarmed by his wish to question her, steals money from her aunt, and runs away back to London. There, she takes to
shoplifting Shoplifting is the theft of goods from an open retail establishment, typically by concealing a store item on one's person, in pockets, under clothes or in a bag, and leaving the store without paying. With clothing, shoplifters may put on items ...
, but in running away from the police she has a terrible fall among the ruins of the City and is nearly killed. With Barbary hanging between life and death, her mother returns to London, staying with her former husband. The novel reaches its conclusion with a reconciliation between Barbary and her mother (Barbary explaining that she had nothing to do with the drowning of Maurice) and with a revelation about her conception.


Aftermath

Soon after writing ''The World My Wilderness'', Rose Macaulay rejoined the
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...
.


Criticism

In their article on Macaulay in the '' Dictionary of National Biography'',
Constance Babington Smith Constance Babington Smith MBE, FRSL (15 October 1912 – 31 July 2000) was a British journalist and writer, but is probably best known for her wartime work in imagery intelligence. Early life Constance Babington Smith was born on 15 Octo ...
and Katherine Mullin say "''The World My Wilderness'' (1950) showed that new depths of pity had transmuted her satirical approach."


Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

''The World My Wilderness'' was adapted into a
BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
play in ten episodes, first broadcast between 25 March and 5 April 2002.The World My Wilderness
at radiolistings.co.uk (accessed 6 December 2007)


Publication details

*First UK edition:
Collins Collins may refer to: People Surname Given name * Collins O. Bright (1917–?), Sierra Leonean diplomat * Collins Chabane (1960–2015), South African Minister of Public Service and Administration * Collins Cheboi (born 1987), Kenyan middle- ...
,
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, May 1950, 254pp, red cloth lettered in gilt on spine, with a pictorial dustwrapper by Barbara Jones *US: Little, Brown paperback, December 1987, 254 pp, *Virago Modern Classics paperback, 1992, introduced by
Penelope Fitzgerald Penelope Mary Fitzgerald (17 December 1916 – 28 April 2000) was a Booker Prize-winning novelist, poet, essayist and biographer from Lincoln, England. In 2008 ''The Times'' listed her among "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945". ''The Ob ...
, 266 pp,


Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:World My Wilderness, The 1950 British novels English adventure novels Fiction set in 1945 Novels set in the 1940s Novels set in France William Collins, Sons books